India: Project to help farmers cultivate more crops in Maharashtra

In a bid to enable farmers to cultivate at least two to three crops along with short-term sowing of vegetables for sustainable agriculture practices, the Maharashtra state government has decided to extend its flagship project Jalyukta Shivar Yojna to all villages. The initiative, which to date was aimed at the 25,000 villages suffering the effects of drought, will now be extended to the remaining 15,000 villages for scientific water conservation. The initiative comes after local councils from all villages in the state approached the government asking for help. With this new move, focus has now turned to making all the 40,000 villages self-reliant when it comes to water. Efforts will be made to create smaller water bodies, which would utilise every drop of rainwater.