Economic Analysis of Irrigation Water under Different Water Use Regimes in Godavari Command Area

A study was undertaken in Karimnagar and Warangal districts falling under the Godavari command area of Telangana to analyze the economics of irrigation among the farm households across surface water (SW), groundwater (GW) and conjunctive use (CU) regimes. Data was analyzed using descriptive statistics and natural resource economics tools. The farms under CU realized higher net returns per acre ( 11792) followed by GW farms ( 8229) and SW farms ( 7516). There was also an enhanced savings to the extent of 10900 per acre due to reduction in the expenditure on human labour, machine labour, marketing and irrigation cost under CU regime when compared to GW regime. The per annum volume of surface water used in the case of SW farms and CU farms was 263 acre inches and 182 acre inches, respectively. Volume of water used in case of CU is less when compared to SW regimes. Annual cost of irrigation water per acre was found to be highest in GW farms ( 6916) when compared to SW ( 1284) and CU ( 4063) farms. This study has shown the potential benefits of CU regime over SW and GW regime.

This study focusses on quantification of water under three regimes of irrigation and also estimation of cost and returns of different crops cultivated in the command area.