Date:07/05/2004 URL: http://www.thehindubusinessline.com/2004/05/07/stories/2004050700461900.htm

Back AIBP: States urged to be cost-conscious

G. Srinivasan

New Delhi , May 6

STATE Governments undertaking irrigation works under the Accelerated Irrigation Benefit Programme (AIBP) should prioritise the ongoing ones strictly on the basis of cost benefit analysis and the incremental benefits to be derived from each unit of the proposed investments on these projects, says an official report.

"Except for preliminary expenditure no major investment on a project should be made unless the issues of land acquisition, relief and rehabilitation, and forest clearance are sorted out as a whole for the entire project," according to the report of the Project Monitoring Division of the Ministry of Programme Implementation in its half-yearly assessment on implementation of the AIPB as on end-March 2003.

It might so happen that the dam is constructed but the distribution system is not making headway for these reasons, which would render the investment idle and at times will not fructify, the report warned.

Out of the major and medium projects that received CLA under AIBP, 22 projects have since been completed namely, Rupahi (Assam), Bilasi Reservoir (Bihar), Tapkara Reservoir, Latatu and Kansjore (Jharkhand), Ranjit Sagar Dam (Punjab), Jaisamand Modernisation and Gambhiri Modernisation (Rajasthan), Sarda Sahayak, Gunta Nala Dam, Gyanpur Pump and Rajghat Dam (Uttar Pradesh) and Kangsabati (West Bengal).