The Irrigation Future of India

India’s irrigation sector is one of the largest in the world in terms of irrigated area, volume of investment and number of large dams including under construction. Besides directly helping the farmers, the significant development made in area under irrigation is also indirectly helping to control the food inflation and increase the employment opportunities and wage rate for small peasants and landless farm labourers. However, the irrigation sector has been facing a variety of problems now, some which can affect its sustainability seriously if urgent steps are not taken to improve them. Despite spending huge amount of money, some of the old issues are re-emerging albeit in different avatar. While highlighting the major issues that are being encountered by the irrigation sector in a systematic way using the available literature and data, this chapter provides the overall context and setting for the volume. A synthesis about each individual chapters included in the volume to bring connections between various chapters is also included in this chapter.

In view of increased requirement of foodgrains, focused thrust with massive investment from public accounts has been given to create a strong irrigation infrastructure since the first five year plan (1951–56) in India. With the created irrigation potential of over 126 million hectares, India owns one of the biggest irrigation sectors in the world today. Over the last 70 years, many changes have taken place in the overall resource utilisation of India’s irrigation sector. On the one hand, the gap between irrigation potential created and irrigation potential utilised has been widening, while on the other hand, the demand for water is going to exceed the utilisable potential. Is the irrigation sector of India moving in the right direction? What are the changes taking place in the overall use of water resources? What is the state of irrigation potential and utilisation in different regions in India? What is the present and future scenario of water supply and demand in India? Is the development of irrigation taking place uniformly in different regions or any inequality exists in its development? What is the pattern of irrigation investment? Are there any changes in the composition of irrigation investment? What is the share of private investment in the irrigation sector? In this chapter, while explaining the overall physical settings and resource utilisation of the irrigation sector, an attempt is made to answer all the questions utilising massive data published by the Ministry of Water Resources and its associated departments.

Development of groundwater irrigation (GWI) has been very impressive in India, especially after the introduction of green revolution. Area under GWI accounts for about 65% of net irrigated area in 2016–17. Though GWI provides added benefits to farmers as compared to other sources of irrigation, the continuous exploitation of groundwater of late has resulted in drastic drop in water table, salinization and quality deterioration in different parts of the country. Since groundwater contributes overwhelmingly to agricultural growth, the unrestrained exploitation of groundwater can hamper the future growth of agriculture. GWI is controlled by many factors, which are dynamic and bound to change along with the agricultural development. Therefore, one needs to understand the factors determining the groundwater development in different regions over time to understand the dynamics of groundwater use. Though many studies are available on different aspects of GWI in India, not many studies have looked at the sustainable aspects of GWI considering together major States of India. An attempt is made in this chapter to study the development as well as the factors determining GWI over time using state-wise data with a view to suggest appropriate interventions to sustain the use of groundwater.

The face of Indian irrigation has changed completely after the advent of green revolution technologies during the mid-sixties. With the less than six million hectares (mha) in 1950–51, groundwater irrigated area increased to about 44 mha in 2017–18, which is over 65% of India’s net irrigated area. While increasing the production and productivity of crops, the rapid development of groundwater has brought out many negative outcomes for farmers. An attempt is made in this chapter to find out the losers and gainers of groundwater irrigation using survey data of 234 dugwell and borewell owning farmers selected from two regions having different agro-economic settings in Pudukkottai district of Tamil Nadu, a state in South India. The chapter shows that the dugwell and borewell owning farmers had to incur a huge additional cost on account of modifications of wells in order to cope-up with the dwindling water level. The modification cost alone accounted for about 33–48% of the real capital of bore-wells. The pumping cost of water is found to be higher for bore-well fitted with submersible pumpsets as compared to deep bore-wells fitted with submersible pumpsets.

Groundwater irrigation, which accounts for over 65% of net irrigated area as of 2016–17, has become a dominant source of irrigation in Indian agriculture. Besides increasing the cropping intensity, productivity and production of crops, the intensive cultivation of crops due to timely access to groundwater irrigation increases the demand for agricultural labourers and hence water rates for those who are mostly living below poverty line. Both increased affordability of foodgrains and wage rates help the rural poor to cross the poverty barriers. Though irrigation has been used as one of the principal explanatory variables in the poverty-related studies in India, the importance of groundwater has not been recognized by the studies focusing on rural poverty. Since groundwater irrigation became a dominant source of irrigation in India and also its impact proved to be prominent in increasing the productivity and production of crops, it is likely that the impact of it on rural poverty would also be significant. In this chapter, an attempt has been made to examine the nexus between groundwater irrigation and rural poverty using state-wise cross section data covering eight time points: 1973–74, 1977–78, 1983, 1987–88, 1993–94, 1999–2000, 2004–05 and 2011–12. The results of the study show that there is a significant inverse relationship between the availability of groundwater irrigation and the percentage of rural poverty at all eight time points. States like Bihar, Madhya Pradesh, Orissa and West Bengal continue to suffer with severe poverty where the development of groundwater irrigation is very low despite substantial potentiality for expansion.

India’s irrigation sector is one of the largest in the world in terms of owning number of large dams, volume of investment and irrigated area. But, the low financial performance has been threatening its sustainability. Since adequate financial recovery is essential to manage and sustain the vast irrigation network, many changes have been introduced in pricing and in other areas of irrigation sector over the last two decades, with the objective of improving financial recovery rate. A few states have even initiated bold reforms in the irrigation sector to improve its overall performance, while some states have revised the water rates to improve the financial recovery. However, detailed studies are seldom available focusing on issues such as: why is the financial recovery of the irrigation sector poor in India? Is there any relationship between the agricultural development and financial recovery across the states? An attempt has been made in this chapter to fill this gap utilising temporal and spatial data. The study shows that despite substantial increase in area under canal irrigation over the years, there has been a consistent decline in the financial recovery of irrigation projects. The financial recovery rate was close to 100 percent during mid-seventies, but it plunged into a lowest level of 8.60 percent in 2000–01 and then increased to 36.39 percent in 2017–18 at all India level. The recovery rate of agriculturally less developed states is found to be relatively better than the agriculturally developed states. The study found no relationship between the agricultural development and the financial recovery rate across the states.

Maharashtra’s irrigation sector is the largest in India in terms of number of dams, live storage capacity and volume of investment. However, the financial performance of the sector has been very poor; the recovery rate declined from about 166 percent in 1974–75 to 3.87 percent in 1999–2000. The gross receipt of irrigation sector was not even enough to cover the operation and maintenance expenditures of the sector. But, Maharashtra’s irrigation sector achieved financial recovery of over 100 percent by 2004–05. While the economists and policy makers are perplexed about this unthinkable achievement, not many studies have analysed the factors behind such full financial recovery rate. Is this due to substantial increase in water rates or due to reduction in working expenditures of the irrigation sector? Could this be due to rapid progress made in the formation of water users’ associations? What are the specific reforms introduced recently to increase the financial performance of irrigation sector? In this chapter, using the available secondary information, an attempt is made to probe these issues.

Tank is an important traditional source of irrigation in India, which irrigates about three million hectares even today. It is considered to be a low cost source with fewer environmental problems, but the performance of tank irrigation has been poor and deteriorating over the years. Several studies have analysed the performance of tank irrigation using field survey data, but not many studies seem to have attempted to analyse the trends and determinants of tank irrigation covering various States as well as national level data in recent time. In this chapter, therefore, using time series data from 1950–51 to 2016–17, an attempt is made to (a) study the growth pattern of tank irrigation across different periods both at the national as well as at State level, (b) study the nexus between rainfall and area under tank irrigation at a specific State namely Tamil Nadu, which has relatively larger area under tank irrigation, (c) find out the losers and gainers of tank irrigation among different categories of farmers, and (d) to suggest policy measures to rejuvenate tank irrigation in India. The results of the study indicates that increase in rainfall alone is not going to make any appreciable improvement in area under tank irrigation unless adequate measures are taken up to improve the flow of water supply and storage capacity of the tanks

Tanks are the important traditional source of irrigation in India, which irrigates about three million hectares even today. It is considered to be a low cost source with fewer management and environmental problems, but the performance of tank irrigation has been poor and deteriorating over the years. Several studies have analysed the performance of tank irrigation using field survey data, but not many studies in the recent time seem to have attempted to analyse its trends and status in Andhra Pradesh, which is an important tank irrigated state. In this chapter, therefore, using time series data from 1960–61 to 2013–14, an attempt is made to (a) study the growth pattern of tank irrigation across different periods at state and across the districts and regions of Andhra Pradesh, (b) find out the nexus between rainfall and area under tank irrigation across the districts and regions, (c) find out the beneficiaries of tank irrigation among different categories of farmers across the districts, and (d) to suggest policy measures to rejuvenate tank irrigation in Andhra Pradesh. The study shows a sharp reduction in the area under tank irrigation in the state over the years. The districts which had traditionally large area under tank irrigation have registered a sharp reduction in its tank area over the years. A substantial reduction in tank irrigated area is found in Rayalaseema region where tanks are critical for farming. Correlation analysis suggests a significantly negative impact of groundwater irrigation development on tank irrigated area in most districts. The results of the study seem to suggest that increase in rainfall alone is not going to make any appreciable improvement in area under tank irrigation unless adequate measures are taken up to improve the flow of water supply and storage capacity of the tanks through a well structured water users’ organisations.

Tanks are an important traditional and low-cost source of irrigation water in India, as they pose few environmental problems. But, tank irrigation has been on the decline, with its use deteriorating over the years. At the all-India level, it accounted for about 18 per cent of net irrigated area in 1950–51, dropping to a meagre 3 per cent in 2010–11. Despite the continuous reduction in area under tank irrigation, its role in increasing the growth of agriculture, recharging of groundwater and livestock development cannot be ignored, especially in south Indian states of Andhra Pradesh, Karnataka and Tamil Nadu where tanks play an important role in agricultural development even today. Why is the area under tank irrigation declining continuously? Numerous studies have attempted to answer this question using micro- and macro-level data. Most of them cite variations in rainfall, boom in groundwater irrigation, breakdown of village-level local institutions, encroachment in catchment areas and supply channels or poor maintenance as the main reasons for the sharp decline in the performance of tank irrigation in India. In recent years, urban agglomeration, which encroaches upon the catchment area of tanks, its water-spread area and supply channels for construction of private and public buildings, has been found to pose a serious threat to the existence of tank irrigation in many parts of the country. Although this problem has been identified in a few studies, the impact of urban agglomeration on tank irrigation has not been studied taking into account the district-level time series data. Tamil Nadu is among the important states in which tank irrigation is still widely employed in agriculture in spite of its urban population growing at a fast clip. This study makes an attempt to assess the impact of urbanisation on the number of tanks as well as on the area under tank irrigation in Tamil Nadu taking district-wise data from 1970–71 to 2009–10 as the basis. It is observed that there is a considerable reduction in area under tank irrigation in most districts where urban population is higher or where the growth of urban population is above the state’s average. But, more studies that make use of disaggregated data (taluk/block level) are needed to validate the results of our study

The significant role of irrigation development in land use pattern, cropping pattern, cropping intensity, production and productivity of crops has been well documented by various studies in India. However, the contributions of irrigation to agricultural output and related parameters are fervently questioned in the recent years. Since the role of irrigation in increasing the value of agricultural output has not been studied by many scholars especially using disaggregated data covering different time points, an attempt has been made in this chapter to fill this gap by using cross-sectional data for 235 Indian districts, drawn from 13 states at six time points: 1962–65, 1970–73, 1980–83, 1990–93, 2003–05 and 2005–08. Both descriptive and regression analyses have been carried out to study the relationship. Descriptive analysis shows that the difference in value of agricultural output per hectare has narrowed down between less (<30 percent), medium (30–50 percent) and high (>50 percent) irrigated districts over the years, especially after 1990–93. The univariate regression analysis carried out treating irrigation (with and without dummy as well as with and without time lag) as an independent variable and the value of agricultural output per hectare as dependent variable shows that the impact of irrigation on the value of output has declined (both irrigation coefficient and R²) over time. During 1980–83 and 1990–93, irrigation alone has explained around 50 percent of variation in agricultural output, but the same declined to about 24 percent during 2003–05 and 2005–08. Multivariate regression analysis carried out by using different yield increasing and infrastructure variables suggests that although irrigation still plays a dominant role in increasing the value of output, its value of coefficients has been declining over time. Although both univariate and multivariate regression results show a declining trend of irrigation coefficient over time, one may not be able to firmly say that the role of irrigation in determining the value of agricultural output has reduced over time, as this could have happened due to acceleration in the productivity of crops cultivated in the rainfed/less irrigated districts.

Paddy, which is predominantly cultivated under the conventional inundation method, is the largest water consuming crop in India. Given the looming water scarcity, the inundation method of paddy cultivation is no longer sustainable. A newly introduced method of paddy cultivation popularly known as the system of rice intensification (SRI) is reportedly helping to reduce water consumption and increase land productivity. Although SRI has been in practice over the last few years in India, the impacts of SRI on water saving, land and water productivity as well as on profitability are expected to vary in different ecological settings namely tank, canal and groundwater irrigated areas. In this chapter, utilising data collected from a total of 300 sample farmers from three different settings in Tamil Nadu state, an attempt has been made to fill this gap. The study shows that by adopting SRI method, farmers can save about 40% of irrigation water, increase land productivity by about 46% while reducing 23% in cost of cultivation over the conventional inundation method. While increasing irrigation water productivity and economic water productivity substantially, SRI also generates an additional profit of INR 17,169/acre over the same realised by non-SRI farmers.

Water use efficiency under conventional flood method of irrigation, which is predominantly practiced in Indian agriculture, is very low due to substantial conveyance and distribution losses. A number of demand management strategies and programmes have been introduced to increase the existing water use efficiency in Indian agriculture. One such method introduced relatively recently in Indian agriculture is micro-irrigation, which includes both drip and sprinkler irrigation. Micro-irrigation (MI) is proved to be an efficient method in saving water and increasing water use efficiency as compared to the conventional surface method of irrigation, where water use efficiency is only about 35–40%. Though both drip and sprinkler irrigation methods are in use over the last two decades or so, not many studies seem to have studied its potential and prospects covering different states in India. In this chapter, therefore, an attempt is made to (a) study the current research on micro-irrigation, (b) study the past trends in drip and sprinkler irrigated area across states, (c) estimate the potential area for drip and sprinkler irrigation in different states, and (d) study the reasons for the slow adoption of micro irrigation as well as to suggest policy interventions to increase the adoption of water saving technologies.

Sugarcane is one of the important water-intensive crops cultivated predominantly using conventional flood method of irrigation in India. Not many farm level survey based studies are available focusing on the impact of drip method of irrigation on different parameters of sugarcane crop. In this chapter, using the farm level survey data collected from two districts in Maharashtra, an attempt was made to evaluate the impact of drip method of irrigation on cost of cultivation, productivity, water saving, electricity saving and economic viability of drip investment in sugarcane. It was found that productivity of sugarcane cultivated under drip method of irrigation was 23 percent higher than that of the crop cultivated under flood method of irrigation. While water saving was about 44 percent per hectare due to drip method of irrigation, electricity saving was estimated to be about 1059 kwh/ha. Estimated benefit cost ratios with different discount rates indicate that drip investment in sugarcane cultivation remains economically viable even without subsidy. The study suggests that reduction in capital cost required for drip set, restructuring subsidy programmes and effective (quality) extension network are essential for promoting the cultivation of sugarcane under drip method of irrigation.

Indian irrigation sector after the independence has grown gigantically in terms of volume of investment, gross irrigated area, number dams constructed, water storage capacity, canal network length and number of tube wells. However, of late, the sector faces a number of challenges such as growing gap between irrigation potential created and its utilisation, low financial recovery rate, over-exploitation of groundwater, looming demand-supply gap in water, stagnation in canal irrigated area, sharp decline in low cost source of water (tank), etc. Questions have also been asked about the role of irrigation in increasing the agricultural output and reducing rural poverty. There are also issues about the beneficial impacts of new water saving technologies/methods such as system of rice intensification (SRI) and micro-irrigation (drip and sprinkler). Using both macro (both spatial and temporal data) and micro-level data, this volume attempts to address all the important issues confronting each source of irrigation and also provides policy suggestions to manage the sector in a better way in the future. While presenting the major findings of each chapter included in this volume, policy challenges facing the irrigation sector today and the way forward for improving the performance of irrigation sector in the future are also presented. Areas where new research is needed to sustain the irrigation sector is also highlighted in this chapter.