‘Irrigated land rose 5.17% in decade’

The Cabinet on Tuesday viewed a presentation by the state’s Water Resources Department that sought to reject claims that despite expenditures totalling almost Rs 70,000 crore in the past 10 years,the area of irrigated cropped land had grown by only 0.1 per cent. The presentation,demanded by Chief Minister Prithviraj Chavan who had announced a white paper on irrigation projects in the state,saw the Nationalist Congress Party-controlled Water Resources Department claiming that irrigated land in the state has actually risen by 5.17 per cent in the past decade.

According to the presentation made by Principal Secretary (Water Resources Department) E B Patil,the state has spent Rs 42,500 crore on dam projects over the past decade,bringing 29.55 lakh hectares under irrigation. Irrigation potential for over 48 lakh hectares had been created,Patil told the Cabinet on Tuesday.

The state’s dam projects,which need another Rs 70,000 crore for existing works to be completed,have been in the eye of a storm for the past few months with Opposition leaders pointing out that projects had seen cost escalation up to 4,000 per cent in some cases,with work still nowhere near complete. The Economic Survey of Maharashtra for 2011-’12 had provided data that showed a 0.1 per cent increase in area under irrigation.

On cost escalations,the presentation argued that issues related to land acquisition,including the increased cost of rehabilitating project-affected persons,were to be blamed. The gap between potential created and actual land brought under irrigation was owing to funds paucity for completing canal works,it argued.