Odisha govt targets to irrigate 10 lakh hectares in five years

  |   28 October, 2014   |   822   |   3980

Bhubaneswar: The Odisha government has set a target of providing irrigation facilities across 10 lakh hectares of arable land in the next five years with an estimated cost of Rs 18,000 crore. A decision to this effect was taken at a high-level review meeting presided over by chief minister Naveen Patnaik at the State Secretariat on Friday.



While 54 percent (33.12 lakh hectares) of the total land in the state have irrigation facilities, the government has prepared a blueprint to provide irrigation facilities to another 10 lakh hectares in the next five years. It was revealed during the meeting that while a target was set to provide irrigation facilities to 2.04 lakh hectares of land in the current fiscal year, only 32,670 hectares have been covered by September 30.



However, the target to provide irrigation of 35 percent land in each block has fallen short by 40 percent. Out of a total of 314 blocks, 189 blocks have been provided with the facilities so far.