‘Sahi Fasal’ campaign was launched by National Water Mission, Ministry of Jal Shakti in 2019 to nudge the farmers in the water stressed areas to grow less water intensive, economically remunerative and environmentally friendly crops. ‘Sahi Fasal’ is an awareness generation campaign implemented with the objective of weaning away the farmers from growing water intensive crops and using micro-irrigation techniques with a view to increase water use efficiency in agriculture.

Under Sahi Fasal, so far, a series of workshops have been organized in Amritsar, Aurangabad & Kurukshetra and with technical experts in New Delhi for awareness generation and information dissemination amongst farmers and stakeholders concerned.

Since this is an awareness generation campaign, no separate allocation of funds has been made by this Ministry for the ‘Sahi Fasal’ campaign. Water being a state subject, State Governments use their own resources on the basis of their planning and priorities.

No specific data is available on number of farmers shifted to less water intensive crops and amount of water saved due to ‘Sahi Fasal’ campaign. However, Central Government and State Governments have been implementing programmes to enhance water use efficiency in the agriculture and encourage farmers for crop diversification & to opt for less water intensive crops.

Government fixes Minimum Support Prices (MSP) on mandated agricultural crops including less water intensive crops. However, no evidence based analysis has been conducted on this issue.

This Information was given by the Minister of State for Jal Shakti Shri Bishweswar Tudu in a written reply in Rajya Sabha today.

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