Union Minister for Water Resources, River Development and Ganga Rejuvenation Ms. Uma Bharati has said that Rs 77000 crore will be raised during the next four year from the market for speedy implementation of 99 prioritized projects under Accelerated Irrigation Benefits Program (AIBP) throughout the country.
She was speaking at the recent signing ceremony of Memorandum of Agreement between Ministry of Water Resources, River Development and Ganga Rejuvenation and NABARD for providing central assistance to 99 prioritized irrigation projects under PMKSY in New Delhi. The Minister said 56 AIBP projects will cover all most all drought prone districts of 18 states of country.
The Union Cabinet on July 27, 2016 had approved the Establishment of Mission for completion of 99 prioritized projects and its funding arrangement through NABARD. Central Government launched the AIBP in FY1996-97 to provide Central assistance to major/medium irrigation projects in the country, with the objective to accelerate implementation of such projects which were beyond resource capability of the states or were in advanced stage of completion.
The Finance Minister in his budget speech during 2016 has announced for creation of dedicated Long Term Irrigation Fund (LTIF) in NABARD with an initial corpus of about Rs 20,000Crore and an amount of Rs 12517crore has been provided as budgetary resources and market borrowings during 2016-17.