The Hindu : Tamil Nadu / Chennai News : Recharge scheme hits roadblock

Online edition of India's National Newspaper
Saturday, Nov 21, 2009
ePaper | Mobile/PDA Version

Tamil Nadu

Tamil Nadu - Chennai

Recharge scheme hits roadblock

T. Ramakrishnan

CHENNAI: A scheme meant to help farmers in setting up groundwater recharge structures has hit a roadblock.

The State government has decided not to grant fresh approvals till 50 per cent of the beneficiaries establish the structures. Reason: only about 15,000 artificial recharge structures have come up whereas authorities, since September 2008, have cleared 3.47 lakh wells under the scheme.

For setting up the structures, small or marginal farmers get a subsidy of Rs.4,000 per well. Other farmers, are given Rs.2,000 per well. Till now, Rs.102 crore has been disbursed.

The decision was taken at a meeting of the State-Level Steering Committee last month when the panel reviewed the progress of the scheme, says an official of the State Ground and Surface Water Resources Data Centre.

Taken up under the national programme, the scheme is completely funded by the Centre. Its objective is to recharge the existing dug wells using rainfall run-off from agricultural fields. A total of Rs.509 crore has been sanctioned for Tamil Nadu, one of the seven States chosen.

According to data available with the government, the State has about 12.5 lakh such wells. Nearly 10 lakh wells are owned by marginal farmers (up to one hectare land holding) and small farmers (1-2 ha land holding). Chennai, the Nilgiris, Kanyakumari and Ariyalur districts have been excluded from the scheme.

Another decision taken by the authorities is to direct field officials of the Data Centre for enlisting the services of local non-governmental organisations to motivate the beneficiary-farmers and persuade them to set up the artificial recharge structures. An amount of Rs.200 per structure will be given to such NGOs, the official adds.

Printer friendly page
Send this article to Friends by E-Mail

Tamil Nadu