Maharashtra Govt to double farmer income in 5 years: Governor

The Maharashtra Government has taken a slew of measures to double farmer income in the next five years and address the issue of agrarian distress, said Governor Vidyasagar Rao today.
The state remains a preferred destination for foreign investment as it accounted for 50 per cent of the total FDI inflow in India in the past six months, he said.
Rao was addressing a joint sitting of the state legislature on the first day of the Budget session.
In addition to attracting a major share of FDI and taking efforts to accelerate economic growth, the Government had initiated a slew of farmer-friendly measures in form of sustainable development schemes, marketing support, crop insurance, water conservation, irrigation and agriculture diversification, he said.

"These measures are directed at mitigating agrarian distress and increasing agriculture productivity. They will also contribute in doubling of farmer income in the next five years," the Governor told the members of both Houses.
Rao said Maharashtra leads in the implementation of Pradhan Mantri Fasal Bima Yogana, operationalised in the state from 2016 kharif season. Around 1.08 crore farmers have enrolled themselves in the crop insurance scheme.

Nearly 80 lakh soil health cards have been distributed to farmers in order to ensure balanced and effective use of fertilisers, the Governor said.
A state-sponsored scheme has been started from this year to disseminate information regarding farm technologies and facilitate timely distribution of inputs, Rao said.

The Government will install automatic weather stations in every revenue circle from the kharif season this year to help farmers get accurate climate forecast, he said.
A micro irrigation scheme to cover nearly 1.25 lakh hectare of land over the next three years will be promoted to mitigate the recurring drought-like situation in Marathwada, the Governor told the legislature.
He said the Government has decided to prioritise completion of 26 unfinished irrigation projects, that are included in the Pradhan Mantri Krishi Sinchayee Yojana, in the next three years.
Referring to Jalyukt Shivar Yojna, the Governor said
under the water conservation scheme, about 12 lakh thousand cubic meters of water storage potential has been created.

Similarly, "farm pond on demand' scheme has become popular. So far, 9,000 farm ponds have been constructed which would provide relief to drought-affected farmers, he said.
Nearly 11,000 villages have been made drought-free by judicious conservation of water. Till date, Kolhapur, Pune, Navi Mumbai municipal corporations, 100 municipal councils, four districts, 73 talukas and 11,320 villages have been declared "open defecation free", Rao said.
All the offices at district places in Maharashtra will soon become online RTI compliant, he said.
Maharashtra is the first state in the country to make Aadhaar number the sole identifier of beneficiary for any subsidy or benefit of service, the Governor said.

Individual beneficiary schemes like scholarship to students and subsidies to farmers would be delivered through pan-state Maha DBT and services portal in phases starting with 32 schemes from 2017-18, he said
The Government is focusing on completion of CCTV projects in other major cities after Mumbai and Pune, he said.
The government plans to construct Versova-Bandra sea link project, an extension of the Bandra-Worli sea link, with an estimated cost of Rs 7502 crore, he said, adding state-run agency MSRDC has been entrusted with the task.
The state has sanctioned improvement of around 10,500 km of state highways at a cost of about Rs 30,000 crore. This work will be completed in the next two years, Rao said.

About 3,600 km of state highways are planned to be upgraded to national highways by May 2019 at an estimated cost of Rs 24,000 crore.
He said preparatory development works for a greenfield airport at Navi Mumbai have been completed. The project affected people have been provided liberal compensation package.
Draft development plan of NAINA (Navi Mumbai Airport Influence Notified Area), a self-sustainable proposed city, has been published, the Governor said.
To improve connectivity in Navi Mumbai, Nerul-Uran railway corridor is under construction and its first phase is expected to be operationalised by July 2018, he said.
The Belapur-Pendhar Metro rail project in Navi Mumbai is expected to be completed by 2018. Work order for the selected bidder of the Shivaji memorial off the Arabian sea will be issued shortly, the Governor said.