Q.41. “Enhancing water productivity and irrigation efficiency can do miracle to the agricultural development in India”. Comment in light of the idea of ‘more crop per drop’.

Ans. India’s agriculture lacks irrigation facilities—just around one third of it gets it. Meanwhile, additional irrigation capacity is developed agricultural productivity can be boosted in a miraculous way by enhancing the efficiency of the existing irrigation system. The conventional systems of irrigation, over the time, have become non-viable in many parts of India (NITI Aayog, Task Force on Agriculture, 2015) due to three reasons—

(i) increasing shortages of water,

(ii) wastage of water due to over-irrigation, and

(iii) salination of soil.

Economically and technically efficient irrigation technologies like—drip and sprinkler irrigation (micro irrigation)—can improve water use efficiency, reduce costs of production by reducing labour costs and power consumption (Economic Survey 2015–16)—

• sprinkler irrigation resulted in 35 to 40 per cent savings of irrigation water in the cultivation of groundnut and cotton in Gujarat, Karnataka and Andhra Pradesh.

• drip irrigation resulted in 40 to 65 per cent savings in water for horticulture crops and 30 to 47 per cent for vegetables.

Water productivity in India is very low. The overall irrigation efficiency of

the major and medium irrigation projects in India is estimated at around 38 per cent. The efficiency of the surface irrigation system can be improved from about 35–40 per cent to around 60 per cent and that of groundwater from about 65–70 per cent to 75 per cent (NITI Aayog, Task Force on Agriculture, 2015). Water productivity needs to be enhanced by the following methods –

• tapping, harvesting and recycling water,

• efficient on-farm water management practices,

• micro irrigation,

• use of waste water, and

• resource conservation technologies.

In order to promote judicious use of water ensuring ‘more crop per drop’ of water in agriculture for drought proofing, the GoI recently launched the PMKSY aiming at providing water to every field of agriculture. In this regard, India needs to go for enhanced irrigation efficiency and water productivity.