Niti proposes farmers' firm to promote PPP in micro irrigation

Government think tank Niti Aayog today made a case for setting up a Farmer Producer Company, a hybrid of firm and co-operative, to promote public private partnership (PPP) in the micro irrigation sector.
In a draft report, 'Public Private Partnership in Integrated Micro-Irrigation (IMI) in India', Niti seeks to facilitate the participation of private sector and integrate various government subsidies at the farm level.
The objective, it said, is to promote participatory farming at scalable levels and increase farmers' income by employing more efficient means of irrigation.
"All primary beneficiary farmers who own the land, which shall be pooled for implementation of the IMI network, will form a Farmer Producer Company (FPC) and will become its members," the report said.

The Aayog has invited comments from public and other stakeholders on the draft report till November 30, 2017.
The report noted that globally, "it's well established that micro irrigation technologies increase crop yield, save water, improve crop quality, enhance the fertiliser/chemical application efficiency, conserve energy, reduce labour cost, improve pest management, increase feasibility of irrigating difficult terrains, improve suitability of problem soils, improve tolerance to salinity etc".

In micro-irrigation, supply of optimum quantity of water in the form of tiny streams, fine spray or continuous drops mitigates water loss due to evaporation and on account of seepage and percolation.
The report pointed out that out of approximately 160 million Ha of cultivable land in the country, only about 65 million Ha (41 per cent) is currently covered under irrigation (for 2011-12)

"The current area under MI in India is only 8.6 million Ha3 compared to the potential of 69.5 million Ha4," it said.
The draft report also said that state governments will constitute a single window, State Implementation Agency (SIA), to ensure that all clearances and approvals regarding implementation of PPP-IMI are provided in a time-bound manner.
As per the report, only 15 per cent of the farmers in India are large and medium scale farmers, they account for control over 55 per cent of the total available land.