Chief Minister Shivraj Singh Chouhan chaired the 53rd meeting of Narmada Control Board on Wednesday. At the meeting, sanction was granted to irrigation projects of 57,000 hectares capacity for Nimar region.
The two projects will take Narmada water from ambitious Indira Sagar project to those areas of East and West Nimar, which hitherto deprived of irrigation facility due to geographical situation.
The Chief Minister said that every possible effort would be made to supply irrigation water to deprived areas. He said that every drop of Narmada water should be utilized for 'Per Drop More Crop'. Priority would be attached to reach water through canals of Narmada Valley projects to deprived areas.
The meeting sanctioned Chaigaon Makhan lift irrigation schemes, which would irrigate 35,000 hectares in 58 villages under Pandhana tahasil of Khandwa district. Project's cost would be Rs 784 crore. Besides, Bistan lift irrigation costing Rs 515 crore was also sanctioned to irrigate 22,000 hectares in Bistan region under Gogawan, Bhagwanpura and Khargone tahasils in Khargone district. Under both the schemes irrigation water will be available to farmers through sprinkler and drip methods.
As a result, there would be no need to develop command areas for irrigation, which are needed in case of irrigation through canals. For both projects, necessary water will be drawn from main canal of Indira Sagar project. Solar energy will be generated for lift irrigation. After feeding generated solar power into grid of Energy Department, necessary power will be drawn for the projects. Thus, both the projects will be self-dependent in consumption of power. As a result sprinkler and drip methods, costs of both the projects will also reduce by about Rs 285 crore.
Finance Minister Jayant Malaiya, Forest Minister Gaurishankar Shejwar, PWD Minister Sartaj Singh, Farmers Welfare and Agriculture Minster Gaurishankar Bisen, Revenue Minister Rampal Singh, Chief Secretary Anthony DeSa, NVDA's Chairman Rakesh Sahni, ACS Water Resources, Finance and Chairman of NVDA Rajneesh Vaish attended the meeting.