Micro-Irrigation in India: Progress, Challenges, and Future Directions
Description
"Micro-Irrigation in India: Progress, Challenges
& Future. Enhancing Agricultural Efficiency"
Micro-Irrigation in India: Progress, Challenges, and Future Directions
Description: Explore the status of micro-irrigation in
India, its benefits, government initiatives, challenges, and the way forward.
Learn how this efficient irrigation method impacts agriculture and water
management.
What is micro-irrigation?
Micro irrigation is a scientific method of irrigation carrying desired water and nutrients direct to the root zone of the plant, drop by drop. The system has an extensive network of pipes operated at low pressure. At pre-determined spacing outlets are provided for emission water generally known as emitters.
Advantages of Micro Irrigation Systems:
Micro Irrigation System is touted as having much higher efficiencies than spray or rotary sprinklers. The high-efficiency results from four primary factors:
The water is slowly applied directly to the root zone.
Only the root zone or the partial root zone is irrigated, as opposed to sprinkler irrigation where the entire field area is wetted.
Soil and plant surface evaporative losses (including water lost to wind) are minimized or eliminated.
Water lost to surface runoff and deep percolation is minimized or eliminated.
The benefits are:
As a result of the low-application rate of irrigation systems, water is applied slowly allowing it to be absorbed rather than quickly resulting in surface runoff.
It reduces salinity hazards to plants. Minimizing the salinity hazard to plants irrigated by drip irrigation can be attributed to the dilution of the soil solution’s salt concentration, elimination of leaf damage caused by foliar salt absorption with sprinkler irrigation.
Drip irrigation offers considerable flexibility in fertilization. However, fertilizers must be completely soluble in water in order to be distributed evenly through the drip system.
Labour and operational costs can be reduced by the simultaneous application of water, fertilizer, herbicide, insecticide, fungicide and other additives through the drip irrigation system. Localized dry and wet patterns facilitate these simultaneous operations. Further drip irrigation systems can be easily automated where labour is limited & expensive using simple automation equipment such as electrical, mechanical or battery operated time clocks that activate pumps and solenoid valves at selected time during the day.
Not only will the low-application rate reduce operating costs, the lower operating pressure means a reduction in the pumping head requirements, which will result in pumping energy savings.
Government programme
Recognising the importance of micro irrigation, the government has taken various initiatives since 1992. The first real thrust however came in 2006, when the government launched a Centrally Sponsored Scheme (CSS) for micro irrigation. This was later upgraded to the National Mission on Micro Irrigation (NMMI) and was implemented through the year 2013-14. For the year 2014-15, NMMI was subsumed under the National Mission for Sustainable Agriculture (NMSA) and was implemented under the On Farm Water Management (OFWM) component of the scheme.
Pradhan Mantri Krishi Sinchayee Yojna (PMKSY) was launched in 2015, integrating micro irrigation in the flagship scheme as an integral component. The scheme focusses on providing an end-to-end solution to the irrigation supply chain. One key differentiator for micro irrigation is that when compared to other components of this scheme, which include creating infrastructure to bring water to farms and watershed development, micro irrigation presents a quick-win opportunity for all the stakeholders where the implementation can be seen on the ground within months. Developing infrastructure takes years while bringing area under micro irrigation is a task that only requires a few months.
Apart from various schemes, there have also been large-scale projects taken up at the state level that have seen success for example Gujarat Green Revolution Company (GGRC) and Andhra Pradesh Micro Irrigation Project (APMIP). The common thread running through these is the presence of a team dedicated to promoting micro irrigation and strong information technology (IT) backed operations.
Issues
While each government initiative in the past decade has had its own merits and shortcomings, there are a few fundamental challenges that have not yet been dealt with, which include the following:
Lack of focus on micro irrigation: The years of operation of National Mission on Micro Irrigation (NMMI) showed the strongest growth of micro irrigation penetration in the recent decade. However, since the scheme was changed to a component under the National Mission for Sustainable Agriculture (NMSA), there has been a lack of focus on spreading micro irrigation in India, which is a continuing issue seen with the Pradhan Mantri Krishi Sinchayee Yojna (PMKSY).
Lack of dedicated team and IT-backed operations: Tracking the installation of a micro irrigation system, stepby-step, from initiation of work order to installation and payment is still not possible in a majority of states, which is a major source of inefficiencies in the system where IT can play an important role. Also the teams that are implementing the micro-irrigation schemes in various states (with an exception of few) are not dedicated for the said implementation, hence a focused approach is missing.
Delay in release of guidelines/government orders, uncertainty and sporadic changes in scheme guidelines: The lack of smoother/ longer-term guidelines pose a major challenge as evidenced by the fact that operational period of the schemes, on an average, is only 5 months where the farmers miss the utilisation of the micro irrigation system during the peak demand season.
Subsidy disbursement process: Continues to be a big impediment in the growth of the industry. Unavailability of subsidy funds for installations already approved, delayed release of funds, identification of beneficiaries among others, leading to significant delays.
Absence of easy financing mechanisms for farmers: Farmers face major challenges in finding financing option for the micro irrigation products and in case they do find a financing source, there are high collateral demands.
Administrative issue: India has 640 districts, according to the 2011 agricultural census. Therefore, this scheme would require 640 district irrigation plans, which puts a big load of implementation on the approval committees at the state and central levels. This also increases the dependence of progress on skill-set and capabilities of 640 different district heads, which would have wide variation, and hence would be highly subjective. Also if the INR1,075 crores is to be distributed in these 640 districts the amount reaching these districts become very minuscule
Way ahead
In order to achieve desired outcomes in the micro-irrigation sector institutional capacities must be enhanced especially in relation to developing appropriate managerial and technical skills for facilitating effective irrigation management.
Building capabilities for the formulation of district plans for effective irrigation through adequate coordination amongst various district level departments and convergence between various programs is vital.
Further, appropriate/adequate incentives, credit and/or subsidies will have to be provided for adoption of micro-irrigation and aligning cropping patterns with water.
Here is the link to Agroforestry
