Low Economic Efficiency of Irrigation Water Resource in Krishna Western Delta of Andhra Pradesh Demanding Water Management Interventions

Low Economic Efficiency of Irrigation Water Resource in Krishna Western Delta of Andhra Pradesh Demanding Water Management Interventions
Author(s): Dr. A. Siva Sankar, Dr. B. Ravindra Reddy and N. Nirmal Ravi Kumar, Journal of International Academic Research for Multidisciplinary | February 2014
The story of food security in the 21st century in India is likely to be closely linked to the story of water security. Today, the water resource is under severe threat. The past experiences in India indicated inappropriate management of irrigation has led to severe problems. Considering the importance of irrigation water resource efficiency, Krishna Western Delta (KWD) of Andhra Pradesh was purposively selected for this in depth study, as the farming community in this area are severely affected due to severe soil salinity and water logging problems and hence, adoption of different water saving crop production technologies deserve special mention. It is quite disappointing that, canals, tube wells and filter points and other wells could not contribute much to the irrigated area in KWD. Due to fewer contributions from these sources, the net area irrigated also showed declining growth at a rate of –3.98 per cent. Chilly is the most profitable crop cultivated in KWD. Regarding paddy, it was highest for System of Rice Intensification (SRI) technology (1.16) than semi-dry and transplanted technologies. The reduction in irrigation cost in SRI and semi-dry paddy production technologies is significant, as indicated by the decline to a tune of 45 and 55 percents respectively over transplanted technology. This clearly indicates that, by less water usage, paddy returns can be boosted by adopting SRI and semi-dry production technologies. Both the system-level and field-level interventions should be addressed to solve the issues / problems of water management. The environment in the State of Andhra Pradesh in general and in KWD in particular, with reference to the execution of water management aspects is congenial for planning various technological interventions. The enabling environment, institutional roles and functions and management instruments are posing favourable picture for executing the water management interventions in KWD. This facilitates the farming community to harvest good crop per unit of water resource used in the production programme.
Download link: http://www.jiarm.com/Feb2014/paper10642.pdf