Pradhan Mantri Krishi Sinchayee Yojana

Why is in news? 9 years of Modi govt: A look at PM Krishi Sinchayee Yojana

• Out of about 141 million hectares of net area sown in the country, about 65 million hectare (or 45%) is presently covered under irrigation.
• Substantial dependency on rainfall makes cultivation in unirrigated areas a high risk, less productive profession.
• Empirical evidences suggest that assured or protective irrigation encourages farmers to invest more in farming technology and inputs leading to productivity enhancement and increased farm income.
• It is a centrally sponsored scheme under the agriculture ministry.
• It was launched in 2015, the overreaching vision of Pradhan Mantri Krishi Sinchayee Yojana (PMKSY) is to ensure access to some means of protective irrigation to all agricultural farms in the country, to produce ‘per drop more crop’, thus bringing much desired rural prosperity.
• The major objective of PMKSY is to achieve convergence of investments in irrigation at the field level, expand cultivable area under assured irrigation, improve on-farm water use efficiency to reduce wastage of water, enhance the adoption of precision-irrigation and other water saving technologies (More crop per drop), enhance recharge of aquifers and introduce sustainable water conservation practices by exploring the feasibility of reusing treated municipal waste water for peri-urban agriculture and attract greater private investment in precision irrigation system.

Scheme components:

• PMKSY consists of three major components implemented by various ministries. They are as follows.
• By Department of Water Resources, River Development and Ganga Rejuvenation, Ministry of Jal Shakti
• Component: Accelerated Irrigation Benefits Programme (AIBP)
• Component: Har Khet Ko Pani (HKKP)
• Sub component: Command Area Development (CAD); Surface Minor Irrigation (SMI); Repair, Renovation and Restoration (RRR) of Water Bodies; Ground Water Development
• Component: Watershed Development by Department of Land Resources, Ministry of Rural Development
• Component: Per Drop More Crop by Department of Agriculture and Farmers Welfare, Ministry of Agriculture & Farmers Welfare
• State Governments are mandated to monitor from time to time, the projects being implemented by them under PMKSY. During the monitoring, physical and financial progress vis-à-vis the targets is to be reviewed. Further, quality aspects of the implementation are also being monitored by the State Governments.
• In addition, the projects being implemented under the scheme are also regularly monitored by Central Water Commission, as well as by the Ministry of Jal Shakti.
• Since the launch of this Pradhan Mantri Krishi Sinchayee Yojana, considerable progress has been made in the irrigation of land. Now, more than half of the country’s cultivated land has access to assured irrigation.