Aurangabad: Chief minister Devendra Fadnavis on Wednesday said water conservation works through the government flagship scheme and micro-irrigation practices have ensured protective irrigation to over 34 lakh hectares in Maharashtra.“A few decades back, when the state used to get around 110% annual rainfall, the agricultural productivity was around 180 lakh metric tonne. Protective irrigation has helped the state to cope with declining rainfall. The state received considerably deficient monsoon last year but agricultural productivity increased to 185 lakh metric tonne due to protective irrigation,” he said.Fadnavis, while addressing the international micro-irrigation conference, also said the state would witness increased productivity for certain crops during the current season despite the drought in some parts.Jalyukta Shivar, the government flagship water conservation scheme, has been successfully completed in 16,000 villages so far and work in remaining villages was progressing at a fast pace, he said.“Nearly 52% of the state is drought-prone but 80% of the area has rain-fed agriculture. Ensuring water efficiency is the only answer in such a scenario and therefore, micro-irrigation practices play a crucial role,” he said, expressing concern over a unpredictability of rainfall received by the state.The CM claimed that coverage of micro-irrigation techniques has gone up three times during his tenure as compared to the progress made in the 15-year rule of previous Congress-NCP regime. “Our state does not have a single backlog related to disbursal of subsidy for micro-irrigation in agriculture. We have initiated online process to ensure speedy disposal, accountability and transparency in the disbursement process,” Fadnavis said.Fadnavis said that that the state has achieved flow irrigation over 16 lakh hectare of agricultural land in the past four years due to the help from the Centre through its different schemes.“It will, however, not suffice the irrigation needs of all the agricultural land. Therefore, we have to focus on water conservation and micro-irrigation techniques to address water needs of the land that is not under flow irrigation,” he said.He added that the government was digitizing records of the life cycle of crops in different parts of the state to offer necessary interventions to farmers. “Right from sowing to harvesting, we have been digitizing records of life cycle of different crops. The high-tech methods such as remote sensing, drones, GPS and Artificial intelligence are used for the purpose. Such digitization will help in achieving precision while offering necessary interventions,” Fadnavis said.

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