The vast arable land adjacent to Indian coastline perpetually faces the problems of waterlogging and salinity. The occurrences of sea related disaster is common almost every alternate year in one or more of the coastal states. The events like cyclone, super cyclone, hurricane and tsunami further add to the problems of soil salinity. The salinity-induced land degradation causes very low crop yield, even after adopting high yielding varieties and applying other inputs. And this environmental condition worsens the agriculture dependent economy of the rural coastal people further. In this article, the authors endeavour to draw the attention of the nation builders and policy makers towards the worldwide proven subsurface land drainage technology (SLDT) that had been in vogue in developed world extensively for the remediation of coastal land in an accelerated manner. The authors propose creation of a large-scale subsurface land drainage infrastructure (SLDI) and its integration into the network of canal irrigation system in coastal irrigated plains to achieve manifold increase in agricultural production and upkeep of sustained soil health.
coastal agriculture, land remediation, SLDT, SLDI, sustainable development
