1 Executive Engineer,
2 Assistant Professor,
India is a monsoon dependent country for its water resources. Irrigation sector has been fundamental to India's economic development and poverty alleviation since 25% of India's Gross Domestic Product (GDP) and 65% of employment is based on agriculture. During the post independence period, the country has invested a huge amount of capital in the major and the medium irrigation projects. Among the states, three have already achieved 70% or more of the ultimate irrigation potential with Tamilnadu recording 100% achievement, followed by Punjab and Rajasthan at 84% and 74% respectively. Six States, i.e., Haryana, Karnataka, Jammu & Kashmir, and West Bengal are in the range of 63% to 71%, whereas in U.P. and Maharashtra, the achievement would be 56% each. The States of Bihar, Gujarat, Orissa, M.P. and Assam have achieved less than 50% of the ultimate potential. The ultimate potential under major & medium irrigation in the eastern States (except West Bengal), i.e. Bihar, U.P., M.P. and Orissa put together works out to about 50% of the total ultimate potential of the country (MoWR,GoI,2006). In large public irrigation schemes in Asia, the main problems of irrigation service delivery faced by the farmers were usually erratic delivery and inequity between the heads and tail-ends of the canals, resulting in low cropping intensities, in a poor proportion of the systems’ command area being irrigated, and poor yields. The study will review the performance of existing Samrat Ashok Sagar major irrigation and drainage project for selected benchmarking indicators on actual past data observed.
Benchmarking, Modernisation and Rehabilitation, Water Management
