Irrigation Projects worth Rs.50,740 Crores remains Incomplete

The Standing Committee on Rural Development in its 49th report on the Watershed Development Component of the scheme said the period for completing watershed development projects is four to seven years. "Despite the extant situation, the Committee was utterly disappointed during the examination of the yojana when it came to fore that not even a single project out of 8,214 projects of the WDC-PMKSY was declared to have reached an official closure," read the committee's report which was tabled in the House recently.

Of over 8,214 projects covering 39.07 million hectares under the Pradhan Mantri Krishi Sinchayee Yojana, not a single one has "reached an official closure", said a parliamentary report. These projects are worth Rs 50,740 crore.

The committee, headed by P Venugopal, in its report further noted that the approach of the department of land resources had a lot of improvement to do. It revealed that while the department was not taking up any new projects under the scheme from 2015-16, there were still 1774 from different states in which Detailed Project Reports (DPRs) were not prepared. "The Committee is taken aback by the reply of the DoLR wherein it has been stated that DPRs for 1257 projects are yet to be prepared as on 30.09.2017. After such an inordinate delay whereby most of the projects ought to have been completed till now, such lack of alacrity on the part of DoLR is not at all acceptable," the report read.