A STUDY OF IRRIGATION DEVELOPMENT IN INDIA

Abstract

India’s increasing water shortage threatens the sustainability of human development and irrigated agriculture. In India, regrettably, 70 years of planned development and huge public and private expenditures could irrigate about half of the cultivated land.  Ground water (64%) and Canals (23%) are the two main sources that irrigate around 87% of irrigated agriculture. Though there is a huge public spending in the construction of large-scale surface irrigation projects, large number of farmers still drills wells and tube wells with the massive private investment through their own savings and loans. Regarding surface water, the government-built major and medium canal irrigation system but the main problem is the widening gap between the irrigation potential created(IPC) and the irrigation potential utilized (IPU) in India. Hence, the present paper analyses the trends in progress of irrigation during the last seven decades in India.