State aims to irrigate 40 lakh hectares

Mumbai: The state canal committee has set a goal for irrigating up to 40 lakh hectares this year, in its meeting which took place on Friday, while also taking stock of the 36 canal project across the state. Last year, the state had set a goal of bringing 28 lakh hectares under irrigation and claimed that it managed to get 34.96 lakh hectares under irrigation. The irrigation department also said that almost 47 per cent from the budgeted rs 1,208 crore for water bills was met last year.

The state’s canal committee meets every year to decide the irrigation targets of land and priorities of water distribution in different regions. The irrigation minister chairs the meeting with officers and experts across state. Seeing that there were good rains this year, the state has set a target of 40 lakh hectares of land for irrigation.

In 2016-17, this committee had set a target of generating Rs 338 crore as water bill from irrigation and Rs 869 crore from non-irrigation sources. The total target was Rs 1,208 crore. However, the state could only manage to get Rs 572 crore, which is 47 percent of the total target. This year state has set a target of Rs 1,292 crore as total water bill.

“In next two years, an extra Rs 10,000 crore will be spent on irrigation projects in Maharashtra with the help of the Union government. Now the state has around 18 per cent irrigation. We will increase it substantially by 2019,” said irrigation minister Girish Mahajan after the meeting.