National Bank for Agriculture and Rural Development (NABARD) has created a Micro Irrigation Fund with a corpus of Rs. 5,000 crore implemented from 2019-20. The objective of the fund is to facilitate the states in availing an interest subvented loan for expanding coverage of micro-irrigation facilities by taking up special and innovative projects and also for incentivizing micro irrigation beyond the provisions available under PMKSY to encourage farmers to install micro-irrigation systems.
As of 31 March 2021, the cumulative sanction and release under MIF stand at ` 3970.17 and ` 1827.47 crores, respectively. This helped these State Govts. in their efforts to expand micro-irrigation to an area of 12.83 lakh ha involving 10.20 lakh farmers, of which about 78% are SF/MF. As reported by the MoA&FW, GoI, against 12.83 lakh ha, an area of 4.23 lakh ha has been covered by the concerned States as of 01 December 2021.
State-wise cumulative loan sanctioned and released as of 31 March 2021
Karnataka and Tamil Nadu have reaped maximum benefits from the Centrally-sponsored Scheme of Per Drop More Crop component of Pradhan Mantri Krishi Sinchayee Yojana (PMKSY-PDMC).
Out of 53.73 lakh hectares covered under the micro-irrigation under this scheme, Karnataka has covered 10,92,874 hectares that are 20 percent of the total micro-irrigation under the scheme while Tamil Nadu has covered 8,06,966 hectares (15 percent of the total).
Gujarat (14 percent), Andhra Pradesh (14 percent), and Maharashtra (11 percent) are the other three States which have benefited from the scheme.
Interestingly, these top five States have already achieved micro-irrigation of 38-70 percent. States like Madhya Pradesh, Bihar, West Bengal, and Uttar Pradesh, which have less than 10 percent micro-irrigation, have not shown much enthusiasm for the scheme.
Advantages of Microirrigation:-
Microirrigation has gained attention during recent years because of its potential to increase yields and decrease water, fertilizer, and labor requirements if managed properly. Microirrigation systems can apply water and fertilizer directly to individual plants or trees, reducing the wetted area by wetting only a fraction of the soil surface; thus, water is applied directly to the root zone.
- Microirrigation is a low-pressure, low-volume irrigation system suitable for high-return value crops such as fruit and vegetable crops.
- If managed properly, micro-irrigation can increase yields and decrease water, fertilizer, and labor requirements.
- Micro irrigation applies the water only to the plant’s root zone and saves water because of the high application efficiency and high water distribution uniformity.
- Microirrigation can irrigate sloping or irregularly-shaped land areas that cannot be flood irrigated.
- Any water-soluble fertilizer may be injected through a micro-irrigation system.