Maharashtra Budget: Agriculture gets AI boost; Rs 9,710 cr allotted for dept

“The aim is to provide crop planning advice to farmers, reduce production costs, increase productivity, produce high quality crops, and secure sustainable markets for their produce. To achieve these goalsm AI technology will be used to deliver beneficial systems from governmental, semi governmental and private sectors to farmers. In the first phase, 50,000 farmers covering an area of one lakh acres, will benefit from this initiative,” said Finance Minister Ajit Pawar.

The state government retained its poll promise of giving free electricity to 45 lakh farmers using agriculture pumps upto 7.5 HP.

The scheme will incur additional financial burden of Rs 14,000 crore to state exchequer. It, however, stayed silent on its poll promise of giving loan waiver to farmers.

A sizable component of the state budget was dedicated to outline the government’s road map for the agriculture, irrigation and water conservation sector with an objective to make agriculture sustainable and farming financially rewarding. It proposed an outlay of Rs 16,456 crore for the water resources department and Rs 4247 crore for soil and water conservation.

Under the second phase of Nanaji Deshmukh Krishi Sanjivani Project 7210 villages is 21 districts with an outlay of Rs 351. 42 crore are proposed in 2025-26.

To ensure water accessibility to farmers and enhance irrigation potential the state government promised fast tracking of ongoing irrigation projects for which NABARD has approved assistance worth Rs 5,000 crore.

While reiterating the government’s commitment to Jalyukya Shivar Yojna 2.0, the government announced works worth Rs 4,227 crore in 5818 villages.

All the projects are expected to be completed by March 2026.

It has also targeted to make silt free reservoirs, silt rich fields by removing 6.45 crore cubic meters of silt with an expected expenditure of Rs 382 crore (2025-26).

The ambitious river linking project made its way prominently in the budget.

The Wainganga-Nalganaga river linking project has been given the approval with an estimated cost Rs 88,574 crore which will benefit an area of 3,71,277 hectares.

The project when completed will benefit Vidarbha’s six districts Nagpur, Wardha, Yavatmal, Akola, Amravati and Buldhana. Another project, Nar-Par river linking promises irrigation facilities to 49,516 hectares of land in the Nashik and Jalgaon districts with the cost Rs 7500 crore.

Also the Daman Ganga-Ekdare-Godavari river linking project will provide 3.55 TMC of water, restoring 9,766 hectares of land in the Jayakwadi dam’s command area.

In addition, 2,987 hectares of land in Nashik district will also benefit from irrigation. The project cost Rs 2,300 crore.

The ambitious Tapi Mahapunarbharan Irrigation project, estimated at Rs 19,300 cr, the budget said, would bring transformation to the lives of farmers in the saline belt of North Maharashtra and West Vidarbha.

To tackle the drought in Marathwada region, a project is undertaken to divert 54.70 TMC water from the Ulhas and Vaitarna river basins in Konkan to the Godavari basin. The project will bring 2.5 lakh hectares of land under irrigation.

Under the Chief Minister Solar Agriculture Feeder Scheme 2.0 for 2,779 electric substations across 27 districts, the target is to accomplish generation of 16,000 MW of electricity using solar energy projects. The project is likely to be completed by October 2026.

The Baliraj Farm and Panand road scheme will be launched for construction of farm ponds and panand roads crucial for transportation of seeds, machinery,fertilizers and agriculture products.