Changes required in government policies related to irrigated agriculture

India is a country where water is being used lavishly by the people in initial one third length of canal and the remaining portion of canal experiences short supply of water as compared to the designed quantity of water.

One of the reasons is defective and improper design of canals, due to which a large number of canals are unable to carry designed quantity of water in their middle and tail portions. This results excess water in initial one third portion of canal causing water logging conditions in the farmer’s fields. To solve this problem, instead of reducing supply of water in this portion of canal, a drainage system is designed to drain out the excess water from farmer fields. The water through drainage system ultimately drains into the river and goes as a waste. India is a country which is experiencing acute shortage of water even in Ganga and Yamuna basins and the states of these basins say they should be allotted more water than the present allocations as they are unable to irrigate all the Culturable land in Ganga and Yamuna basins.

Similarly in so many irrigation projects, namely Gudha Project, district Bundi in Rajasthan, even if the water is available in adequate quantity to irrigate full Culturable commanded area, it is not possible to provide water in full Culturable commanded area as the network of water courses ( field channels) carrying water from the canal to the farmer fields (which is to be constructed by the farmers at their own cost) do not cover the full Culturable commanded area.

As per the policy of Ministry of Water Resources, Govt. of India, water courses are to be constructed by the farmers at their own cost. As far as known to me, the Ministry of Water Resources, Govt of India has never carried out evaluation of any irrigation project, to exactly know, how the irrigation project is actually performing and what changes in policies are required to improve the water use efficiency. After construction of project, the project is “free to use” by farmers, whatever crops they want to grow and how much water should be given to them, irrespective of the assumption made in the project report about cropping pattern.

The Ministry of water resources, Govt of India and the Central Water Commission may like to deeply study about the changes needed in policy in water resources sector and implement the changes in a short duration to benefit the farmers of India and stop lavish use and wastage of water in large quantities in Irrigation Projects.

Media

Taxonomy

• Agriculture
• Irrigation
• Policy

4 Answers

1. Until and Unless the Modi Govt. restrict the area of high water consuming crops ( sugarcane, rice, etc) like that of Opium, the water crisis in India will continue to expand exponentially

2. i am an automation consultant and i am interested in an automation project that is being discussed in my company now. it shall have robots to test soil over a large farm and send the data to a central station that shall prepare the water map, fertiliser map and the pesticide map. the second will be a drone that will carry water / pesticide / fertilizer over the farm and a automated valve shall open and close in such a way that the resources shall be sprayed according to already available quantity of each resource inthe area, the requirement of each resource etc
   

   this will save huge money to the farmer, reduce deseases caused by over usage of chemicals and save valuable water for the country
   

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   CMD, Center for Automation Technology, India
   

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3. You are right Mr Chetan. Farmers have not been properly educated by the agriculture departments of Union and state governments. The NGO's and other persons working in agricuture field did not educated the farmers for proper use of water for crops. Till now farmers think - more water more crop production, where is the real situation is not like that. Water more than peak quantity will reduce production of crops except for sugar cane and rice. The farmers need to be properly educated to reduce water consumton in agriculture sector.  Drip irrigation is not suitable everywhere. Instead we can say the farmers must use proper method of irrgation best suited for their situation

4. A very interesting topic. First of all good potable water from rivers should not be used in agriculture. Agriculture world over uses 80% of water for irrigation purposes. India dispels 67,000 mld of wastewater every day. Out of this only 27,000 mld is treated and then released into rivers. Ideally all the 67,000 mld of wastewater should be treated to tertiary level quality and then used for irrigation.

   There is also the other aspect of how much water should be drawn by farmers into the fields for irrigation purposes. There are so many agri experts who can assess the volume of water required per hectare as well as based on the produce that is being grown. Once the farmer knows the volume of water required for his field only that much is drawn either from a canal or from a water source. This water then needs to be stored in a tank on his farm and this water can be let out into his field for irrigating purposes. Ideally drip irrigation would be the best method to incorporate instead of flood irrigation. But all farmers may not be in an economic state to install drip irrigation system in his fields. In such a scenario the farmer can approach Banks or NABARD to get financial assistance to set up drip irrigation systems on his farm.

   Better yields and lower losses will be possible only if agriculture is approached in a scientific manner.