Government plans to improve farm land

BHUBANESWAR: The Government has set an ambitious target to improve the condition of 10 lakh hectares of agricultural land through watershed management programmes for sustainable livelihood in rainfed areas. The target will be achieved in next five years. The Government claimed to have taken drought-proofing measures over an area of 9.17 lakh hectares. The Orissa Watershed Development Mission has so far constructed 20,079 watershed projects and another 3,736 projects are under construction. Chief Minister Naveen Patnaik on Saturday reviewed the performance of OWDM at a meeting here and expressed displeasure over the poor utilisation of funds provided under the scheme. Watershed projects assumed significance when less than half of the cultivable land of the State is under assured irrigation. With a cultivable land of 61.65 lakh hectares, the Government has created irrigation potential for only 29.32 lakh hectares. The Government took a policy decision in 2005 to create irrigation potential for at least 35 per cent of the cultivable land in each block. More that 150 out of the total 314 blocks are yet to have irrigation facility for 35 per cent of their cultivable land. The meeting revealed that 4.57 lakh members of self-help groups have been involved in the watershed management and bank loan has been provided to 19,429 SHGs. The SHGs have now a revolving fund to the tune of ` 42 crore. Watershed projects are executed under various programmes like Integrated Watershed Management Programme, National Watershed Development Programmes for rainfed areas, River Valley project, Rashtriya Krishi Vikash Yojana, Jeebika under the State plan and Western Orissa Rural Livelihood Programmes.  The meeting was further told that irrigation potential has been created for 306 hectares in Nuapada district in 2010-11 and 1,140 hectares were brought under groundnut cultivation for developing foundation seeds. Agriculture Minister Pradip Maharathi, Chief Secretary BK Patnaik, Development Commissioner and Agriculture Production Commissioner RN Senapati, Agriculture Secretary RL Jamuda and other senior officers were present.