The National Bank for Agriculture and Rural Development (NABARD ) has approved Rs 3,245 crore for irrigation and rural drinking water supply projects in Gujarat for 2021-22, under the Rural Infrastructure Development Fund (RIDF).
“This is the highest ever allocation for loan assistance to projects in the state,” said a senior NABARD official. Compared to the Rs 2,989 crore sanctioned in 2020-21, the sanctioned amount under RIDF for 2021-22 was 8.5 per cent more.
According to Nabard, the cumulative loan assistance sanctioned under RIDF since 1995-96 to the Gujarat government is Rs 35,225 crore for 63,172 projects. Of these, Rs 13,409 crore (38 per cent) has been allocated during the last five years, officials said.
The irrigation projects that received sanction for 2021-22 are two packages of SAUNI Link 3 project worth Rs 336 crore. The Saurashtra-Narmada Avataran Irrigation Yojana or SAUNI Yojana has been launched to divert one million acre feet of flood waters from Narmada to Saurashtra region.
The SAUNI Link 3 project will connect 28 reservoirs of Rajkot, Jamnagar, Dev Bhoomi Dwarka, Porbandar, Morbi and Surendrnagar district with a 66 km-long pipeline stretching from Dholidhaja dam in Surendrnagar to Venu-1 dam of Rajkot.
The other irrigation projects to receive sanction include a Rs 194 crore lift irrigation project in tribal district of Dahod, Rs 273 crore Panam Reservoir Based Lift Irrigation Scheme, Rs 114 crore Panam High Level Canal based Lift Irrigation Scheme and Rs 231 crore Vaghrech Recharge Project. These irrigation projects will increase the irrigation facilities by 75,112 hectares.
A total of Rs 1,006 crore has been approved for the Jal Jeevan Mission’s rural drinking water supply project, which will provide functional household tap connections to 85.76 lakh people in eight Gujarat districts.
Apart from that, two rural drinking water supply projects for 68.4 lakh rural people have been approved for 2021-22: the Rs 293 crore Budhel to Borda bulk pipeline (in Bhavnagar) and the Rs 794 crore Dhanki to Navda bulk pipeline.