IRRIGATION

Irrigation plays an important role in Indian agriculture. Currently near 45 percent of the 175 million ha of the country’s cropped area is irrigated.

POST-INDEPENDENCE TRENDS
Irrigated area has nearly trebled since the early 1950s from around 24 million ha in 1953-54 to nearly 75 million ha in 1998-99. According to one recent estimate, nearly three-fourth of the increment in the total crop output between the early 1970s and early 1990s came from expansion of irrigated area and increase in per hectare yields on irrigated land. Un-irrigated cropped areas have actually declined and the rate of yield improvement on these areas has been far slower overall, compared to irrigated areas.
Expansion of irrigation has been central to the strategy for increasing agricultural production.
Ø Investments in agriculture
By far the largest part of government investment has been spent on construction of new reservoir base canal system and, to a much smaller extent on improvement of these systems.

Substantial amounts were also spent on small scale surface irrigation works (tanks, local stream diversions and lift irrigation) as well as public tube-wells. But, these were much smaller than investments on large scale surface works.
Irrigation accounts for by far the largest part of total investment in the agriculture sector. Overall public investment on irrigation (central and states together) during 10th plan was Rs. 97720 crores resulting in addition of 8.8 million ha potential. With this 42 million ha of potential have been created under major and medium irrigational at end of 10th plan out of an ultimate potential of 58.5 million ha, and corresponding figures for minor irrigation are 60.4 and 81.4 million ha respectively.

Ø Liberal policies
The government has also encouraged and stimulated exploitation of ground water by farmers for irrigation by giving liberal credit at concessional rate of interest and by implementing a huge rural electrification program and providing cheap electricity and diesel oil for pumping. There has also been surge of private investments in wells and tube-wells.
As a result, the importance of ground water as an irrigation source has increased from 20 percent in 1951 to early 60 percent in the mid 1990s.

UNEVEN ACCESS TO IRRIGATION
Given the size and diversity of the country, it is not surprising to find much interregional variation in the extent and sources of irrigation and their development overtime. Available data suggest that interstate disparity in surface irrigation is considerably less than in groundwater irrigation.
Disparity in the proportion of gross irrigated to total cropped area has also been widening over the years.
Access to irrigation among the farming population is also unequal. For the country as a whole, there is consistently positive association between size of holding and the proportion of household having access to any irrigation and a consistently negative relationship of holding size to the proportion of irrigated to total operated area.
In other words, smaller holdings have less access to irrigation but are able to irrigate a higher proportion of their land.
Expansion of irrigation has clearly favored those with higher holdings far more than those with small holdings.

AREAS OF CONCERN
Government strategy for irrigation development and its implementation has attracted criticism on several grounds. The bulk of public investment in the water sector has gone into construction of large surface irrigation projects.
Ø Under-estimation of costs
Inadequate preparatory investigations and laxity of preclearance upraisal have resulted in serious under-estimation of costs. Compounding this is the tendency to start far too many projects, unmindful of resources available to implement them.
The result has been inordinate delays in completing projects, overcapitalization, and underutilization of their potential and accumulation of a huge overhang of incomplete projects.
Ø Depletion ground water
Depletion ground water is another major area of concern. Despite significant and increasingly widespread fall in the groundwater table, Government policy continues to encourage and finance private investments in wells/tube-wells and there energization and deepening.
In this process, the distribution of access to groundwater is shifting in favor of larger farms at the expense of small holders.
In the case groundwater, there is growing evidence that groundwater exploitation is already at unsustainable levels in many areas and this is becoming more widespread. As the no. of wells and tube wells continue to grow, they are getting deeper and deeper, and more and more powerful pumps are installed to keep pace with the falling water tables.
There is progressive decline in the area irrigated per well and per tube-well.

NEEDED CORRECTIONS
The potential for further expansion of water supplies for both surface and groundwater irrigation is strictly limited.
In the case of surface water, nearly 60 percent of the utilizable potential of surface water is already been utilized and with the completion of projects under construction this proportion might reach 80-85 percent.
As the limits of potential are nearing, new projects are becoming more difficult and more costly.
Ø IMPROVING WATER USE EFFICIENCY
It is therefore imperative that the focus of irrigation programmes and policies has to shift to measures to facilitate and induce conversation and more efficient use of available supplies.
Productivity per unit water also depends on the extent to which the quantum and timing of irrigation can be managed flexibly to maintain an optimum soil moisture profile during crop growth. Flexibility in water application can be increased by creating small ponds or other devices close to user level and/or by more extensive recycling of seepage in canal commands.
Radical changes are needed in the institutional arrangements for water management and the way they function.
They need to be complemented by measures to create strong incentives for more prudent and economical use of water.
Ø WATER GOVERNANCE
The desirability of user involvement and active participation in management of irrigation is gaining acceptance. Some states have taken significant steps to implement this concept by entrusting water users associations with maintenance and collection of water at territory level.
Ø ECONOMIC INCENTIVES FOR EFFICIENT USE
Pricing of irrigation and inputs used for irrigation is critical.
Wasteful and inefficient use of water by the farmers as well as the overexploitation of ground water which is a glaring feature of the Indian scene is due is large measure to the policy of keeping water charges and the prices of electricity and diesel oil at levels far below cost.
This folly has been compounded by laxity in assessment and collection of dues, and by failing to adjust rates in the face of rising costs and output prices. With the effective cost of water relative to output prices falling progressively and steeply, user’s interest in reducing waste and improving water use efficiency, already weak, has become weaker and weaker.
With few takers for price reforms and indifference towards institutional reforms, it is difficult to be optimistic about the prospect of achieving prudent, efficient, and sustainable management of irrigation.

APPROACH TOWARDS IRRIGATION IN THE 11th FYP
The 11th plan envisages creation of an additional potential of 16 million ha at an estimated required outlay of about Rs. 210,000 crores. Since irrigation is a state subject, most of this has been year-marked for financing by States and an analysis of States’. Own preliminary 11th plan allocations show that this might actually be exceeded.
Although financial resources appear adequate except some poorer States, guidelines for the Accelerated Irrigational Benefits Program (AIBP) have already been changed to expand its scope and to increase the Central share for selected areas.
With some States wiling to commit adequate funds, but with actual water use lagging well behind the potential created, it needs to be recognized that the scope for new large surface irrigation projects is getting smaller and that the focus should be on completing on going irrigation projects and on modernizing existing ones.
The ongoing programmes of rural electrification under Bharat Nirman is likely to help, although it is vital to ensure both that adequate credit is available for pump sets and that electricity rates are not reduced to the unsustainable levels reached elsewhere.
A sharp focus is required on making the use of groundwater sustainable in other parts of the country where withdrawal currently exceeds recharge.
Ø There must be regular and accurate assessment of actual groundwater use in both rural and urban areas to correlate this with recharge and extraction.
Ø Separation of feeders for domestic and agricultural power and its timely but controlled supply for irrigation can be an effective mechanism.
Ø Ways must be explored to empower and entrust village communities with the tight and responsibility to collect electricity charges and in dark blocks to regulate access through, for example, obligation on groundwater users to undertake rainwater harvesting and groundwater recharge.
Substantial irrigation potential has been created though major, medium and minor irrigation schemes. The total irrigation potential in the country has increased from 81.1 million ha in 1991-92 to 102.8 million ha in 2006-07. Of the total potential created, only 87.2 million ha (84.9 percent) is actually utilized.