Advancing Agronomy in Canal Irrigated Areas through Participatory Water Resources Development and Management.

India’s water and other natural resources are now speedily headed towards scarcity. Out of 142 million ha of net sown area in the country, only about 64.5 million ha is irrigated through different sources of irrigation. There is a huge gap between created irrigation potential and its utilization. Canal irrigated area hovers around 16.63 million ha during the last 20 years, and is facing problems of inadequacy and unreliability. Irrigation infrastructures are operating at the efficiency of 35-40% only. Most of the canal irrigated areas remain fallow during post-rainy season due to lack of irrigation water.

Participatory water resources development and management has been successful in a canal irrigation project viz. Kuanria irrigation in eastern India. Auxiliary water storage reservoirs i.e., tank-cum-well systems developed in multiple numbers at head-, mid-reach and tail-ends of the canal irrigated areas facilitated development of integrated farming systems (IFS) with active participation of individual or group of farmers, water-user associations (WUA) and Government departments.

An additional water resource of 14,320 cubic meter in 8 IFS units could be created through water storage tanks and dug-wells. Different WUA play key roles for operation & maintenance, and overall governance. Rainfall, runoff water and excess canal water delivered during rainy season could be stored in storage tanks enabling fish culture with a potential yield of 1.32-2.96 t/ha and lucrative business opportunity to farmers. An increase in farm income by 20-34% from IFS is achieved through on-dyke horticultural crops. Conjunctive irrigation using water from auxiliary reservoirs and dug-wells facilitated double cropping under 8 IFS units in about 36 ha, accrued economic benefit of US$ 2286-2900 from one unit of IFS, and water productivity of US$ 0.34-0.89 per cubic meter of water. Hence, participatory water management holds promise for advancing farming systems in canal irrigated areas.