Most of our efforts on water conservation have been centred on Minor Surface irrigation and Major and Medium irrigation sectors. A huge amount of money has been pumped into these projects. However, as compared to the money spent, there has not been appropriate gain in the productivity.

To take up the case of Minor Surface irrigation sector, if we exclude the ground water irrigation from it, its performance has actually gone down. MSI, minus ground water irrigation, served an area of about 8.2 million hectares in the year 1961. Strangely enough this area shrank to 6.7 million hectares in 1989, although a sum of Rs. 60 billion was spent to develop it. Is this not throwing the money down a drain than what is?

According to Eighth Plan document, the total irrigation potential of our country was about! 78.1 million hectares. This gives an impression that more than half of our cultivated land is now irrigated. We have about 142 million hectares of cultivated land.

However, according to Land Use Statistics of the Ministry of Agriculture, which appear to be more reliable, the net area served by Major and Medium Irrigation sector was 16 million hectares and by Minor Surface Irrigation about 6.7 million hectares only. This makes the total of 22.7 million hectares which was irrigated by Surface Irrigation in 1990. In terms of ground water irrigation equivalent it comes down to about 11.4 million hectares only.

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On the other hand, Ground Water Irrigation served about 23.5 million hectares of cultivated land during the same year. If we look at the expenditure involved, the glaring inadequacy comes to light. For Surface irrigation, to develop a capacity of irrigating about 22.7 million hectares, we have spent Rs. 360 billions, while Ground water irrigation which irrigates 23.5 million hectares of cultivated land, was developed mostly by private farmers, with occasional support of bank loans and subsidies. The total investment for Ground water irrigation was much less than what the Government spent on Surface Irrigation.