Patna: Agriculture minister Prem Kumar has directed field officials to prepare a land profile of all Bihar districts for improving irrigation planning.

The exercise entails cross checking existing profiles and updating it where changes have taken place. The officials have been directed to com-plete the exercise as early as possible.

"Unlike the past when we used to make demands based on rough estimates under different heads, this year we intend to prepare our department's note for the state budget as per the requirement of districts," Kumar told The Telegraph.

The minister said the updated land profile would also help the department identify the districts' irrigation needs. "Ideally, there should be a district irrigation plan but it cannot be made unless the department has latest information about the types of land in a given district and also means of irrigation present," the minister said.

Of about 57 lakh hectares of cultivated land in the state, irrigation facility is available on only about 25 lakh hectares. During the third agricultural roadmap period, ending in 2022, the state aims to add around 8 lakh hectares under the irrigated category.

"This is the most suitable time to dig out irrigation details from the district because this data would be of great help to chart out details of the irrigation projects that would be executed during the third roadmap period," said an official of the agriculture department.

"We intend to make our department office functional at panchayat level to ensure farmers have to travel less to avail information related to schemes and other things meant for the benefit of farmers," Prem said.

Now, the agriculture department offices function at the block level, forcing farmers to travel to block offices for their work.

Officials in the department said that use of agriculture advisers and coordinators would be roped in made to make panchayat level offices functional while senior officials working at block, district and divisional levels would be given the task of visiting panchayat offices on fixed days of the week.

The official, however, said that creating panchayat-level offices for the department of around 8,000 panchayats would take time, as basic amenities would have to be provided for these offices.