Micro Irrigation Fund with a corpus of Rs.5000 crore was operationalized in NABARD from 2019-20. Ministry of Agriculture and Farmers Welfare (MoA&FW), Government of India is the Nodal Ministry. The objective of the fund is to facilitate State Govts. efforts in mobilizing additional resources for expanding coverage under micro irrigation and incentivizing its adoption beyond provisions of PMKSY-PDMC. The corpus was to be utilized during 2018-19 and 2019-20. However, continuation of implementation of MIF was further extended for 2020-21. 

 

Under MIF, the State Governments are provided loans at 3% below the cost of funds; the 3% being compensated by the Govt. of India as interest subvention.

 

As on 31 March 2021, the cumulative sanction and release under MIF stands at ` 3970.17 and ` 1827.47 crore, respectively. This helped these State Govts. in their efforts to expand micro irrigation to an area of 12.83 lakh ha involving 10.20 lakh farmers, of which about 78% are SF/MF. As reported by the MoA&FW,  GoI, against 12.83 lakh ha, an area of 4.23 lakh ha has been covered by the concerned States as on 01 December 2021.

 

 As per the announcement made in the Union Budget 2021-22, the initial corpus of ` 5000.00 crore under MIF has been augmented by another ` 5000.00 crore.