Odisha would go for a World Bank loan of $49 million to implement Rejuvenating Watershed for Agricultural Resilience through Innovative Development (REWARD) scheme.
Odisha is one of three States to have planned for such an ambitious programme, which would generally be implemented over a period of six years. The other two States were Karnataka and Andhra Pradesh. The cost of the project is estimated at around 211.57 million dollars, out of which State and Central Governments would provide 162.57 million dollars through convergence of different schemes and World Bank would provide 49 million dollars as loan.Chief Secretary Suresh Chandra Mahapatra held a meeting with senior officials on Sunday to chalk out a roadmap for REWARD programme. Agriculture & Farmers’ Empowerment Secretary Suresh Kumar Vashishtha outlined issues and Pritee Kumar of World Bank with her team presented proposed intervention and outcome details of programme.
It was decided to treat around 1.15 lakh hectares of land under 152 micro-watershed units in five pilot districts, Koraput, Nayagarh, Djenkanal, Deogarh and Sambalpur, in the first phase. Besides, 4.11 lakh hectares in seven districts covering about 533 micro-watershed units would be covered both for pilot intervention and intensive agriculture. These seven districts include Nabarangpur and Sundargarh in addition to above five districts. As such, a target was set to cover a total of around 5.26 lakh hectares of land spreading over 705 micro-watersheds under the proposed REWARD project.
The expected ecological outcomes of project include prevention of soil runoff, regeneration of natural vegetation, rainwater harvesting and recharging of groundwater table. This would enable multi-cropping and adoption of diverse agro-based activities for providing sustainable livelihoods to people in the watershed area. The Chief Secretary directed officials to complete designing of the project by the end of July this year.
