The ministry of water resources, river development and Ganga rejuvenation and national bank for agriculture and rural development (NABARD) have signed an agreement to operationalise the long term irrigation fund (LTIF) as part of the pradhan mantri krishi sinchayee yojana (PMKSY).

The fund, with an initial corpus of about Rs 20,000 crore, was announced in the union budget 2016-17 by finance minister Arun Jaitley. It would be raised by way of budgetary resources and market borrowings to fund fast tracking of implementation of incomplete major and medium irrigation projects.

A phenomenal 76.03 lakh hectares of land is estimated to be brought under irrigation through 99 projects under this initiative which has a total estimated allocation of Rs 77,595 crore. The project which is spread over a period of four years between 2016 and 2020 will have central and state government shares of Rs 31,342 crore and Rs 46,253 crore respectively, said a press release.

Union minister Uma Bharti said that the identified projects were languishing for want of adequate financial resources for many years and the present government made it its top priority to work out a strategy for funding these projects through the LTIF instituted in NABARD under PMKSY.