Agricultural land drainage in India

✍ Scribed by M. Gopalakrishnan; S. A. Kulkarni

• Publisher: John Wiley and Sons
• Year: 2007
• Tongue: English
• Weight: 109 KB
• Volume: 56
• Category: Article
• ISSN: 1531-0353
• DOI: 10.1002/ird.368

✦ Synopsis

In India, large-scale canal irrigation schemes have been in operation for more than a century. At present, there are 1248 major and medium irrigation schemes in the country. During the past three decades there has been a dramatic increase in the use of groundwater for irrigation. As a result, India has the world's largest gross irrigated area (77 million ha). The irrigation development has been widely acknowledged to have helped the country not only to achieve food self-sufficiency but also to be an exporter of agricultural produce in recent times. However, it is now realized that drainage is one of the areas that has not been given an adequate and equal status, while planning for water resource development coupled with a programme for a rapid expansion of irrigation infrastructure, during the era of the ''green revolution''. Drainage provision was generally deferred or postponed in many cases due to the paucity of funds in the initial stages and thus was left to be taken up subsequently or as a curative measure to address waterlogging and salinity problems as encountered.