Watering of agricultural plants through artifi­cial means is called irrigation. Being a hot country with seasonal and irregular rainfall it always needed irrigation to carry on agricultural activities during dry period. There is mention of wells, tanks and canals in the Vedas. Megasthenes (300 B.C.) has described double harvest due to the use of irrigation water.

The Grand Anicut across the Kaveri in Tamil Nadu constructed during the second century A.D., the Bhojpur Lake (Bhopal) built up during the 11th century, the irrigation canals dug by the rulers of the Tughlaq and Mughal dynasty bear evidence to the importance of irrigation in the country’ s agriculture.

During the colonial rule Britishers developed a net­work of irrigation canals in different parts of the country to tide over the problem of famine and drought. The Upper and Lower Ganga Canal (Uttar Pradesh); the Bari Doab Canal and the Sirhind Canal (Punjab), the Buckingham Canal and the Upper Anicut in the Kaveri delta (Tamil Nadu); and the Dowlaiswaram Anicut on the Godavari river (Andhra Pradesh) are some of the important irrigation works of this period which are worthy of mention.

After independence with the beginning of the planned development the increase in irrigation potential was considered to be the prerequisite for agricultural development in the country. With the execution of a number of major and minor irrigation projects, the gross irrigated area in the country increased from 22.6 million hectares in 1950-51 to 84.7 million hectares in 1999-2000, registering an increase of 275% during the last 49 years.