Annual Report 2009-2010 - Department of Agriculture & Co-operation

to November, 2010. The total cost of the project
is a grant of 3.5 million euros from the GTZ in
the form of technical cooperation.
15.10 Watershed Development Fund (WDF): As
a follow-up action to the Union Finance Minister's
Budget Speech of 1999-2000, the WDF was
established at NABARD with a total corpus of
Rs. 200 crore, which includes Rs. 100 crore by
the Department of Agriculture, and Rs. 100 crore
by NABARD as a matching contribution. The total
corpus lies with NABARD.
15.11 The objective of the fund is to spread the
message of participatory watershed
development. The fund is utilised to create the
necessary framework to replicate and
consolidate isolated but successful initiatives
under different programmes in the Government,
semi-government, and NGO sectors. Initially, 18
states, namely, Andhra Pradesh, Bihar, Gujarat,
Maharashtra, Uttar Pradesh, Madhya Pradesh,
Karnataka, Rajasthan, Tamil Nadu, West Bengal,
Haryana, Jammu and Kashmir, Orissa, Himachal
Pradesh, Jharkhand, Chhattisgarh, Uttarakhand,
and Kerala were identified under the WDF.
However, only 13 states, namely, Gujarat,
Maharashtra, Uttar Pradesh, Uttarakhand,
Karnataka, Tamil Nadu, Rajasthan, Chhattisgarh,
Orissa, Jharkhand, Madhya Pradesh, Himachal
Pradesh, and West Bengal came forward for
participating in the WDF. During 2006, after the
announcement of the Prime Minister's
Rehabilitation Package to 31 distressed districts
in the states of Andhra Pradesh, Karnataka,
Kerala, and Maharashtra, it was decided to
implement participatory watershed development
programmes in all these distressed districts
through the WDF. Since inception and up to the
end of December, 2009, an amount of Rs. 169.02
crore, consisting of Rs. 148.05 crore as grants
and Rs. 20.97 crore as loans has been released
to NGOs by NABARD. Of the 148.05 crore grant
component, Rs. 112.03 crore has been released
to 31 non-distressed districts under the PM's
rehabilitation package. At present, a total no. of
1,196 watersheds have been selected,
comprising 416 in non-distressed districts of 13
states and 780 watersheds under the PM's
package for 31 distressed districts of four states
under the WDF.
15.12 Development of Model Watersheds: To
address the bio-physical and socio-economic
dimensions of specific agro-climatic conditions,
and to develop suitable technologies for
maximising the development process under
watershed programmes, 18 model watershed
projects covering different agro-ecological
regions of the country have been assigned to
the Central Soil and Water Conservation
Research and Training Institute (CSWCRTI), ICAR,
and International Crop Research Institute for
Semi-Arid Tropics (ICRISAT), Hyderabad. These
watersheds will serve as model projects for
replicating successful technologies for their
wider dissemination through NWDPRA and other
national/state-level funded watershed projects.
CSWCRTI has been assigned the development
of nine model watersheds located in the states
of Uttarakhand, Rajasthan, Karnataka, Tamil
Nadu, Gujarat, Uttar Pradesh, Punjab, Madhya
Pradesh, and Orissa. An amount of Rs. 1.23 crore
has so far been released to the CSWCRTI under
the direct funded component of the MMA.
Similarly, ICRISAT has also been assigned nine
model watersheds in the states of Rajasthan,
Gujarat, Maharashtra, Madhya Pradesh, Andhra
Pradesh, Karnataka, Uttar Pradesh, Orissa, and
Tamil Nadu. An amount of Rs. 3.10 crore has so
far been released to ICRISAT.
15.13 Programmes in the North Eastern states:
Details of programmes being executed in the
North Eastern states are given in Annexure 15.1.
Rainfed Farming Systems
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