Brief contents of the book

1. PROLOGUE
“The future is always present, as a promise, a lure and a temptation.”
Where Do We Want to Go? Are We Reaching to our Goals?
Huge investments in WUA formations and capacity building are of use, when performanceonly and only
evaluation of WUA is enforced from the top authorities to bottom, otherwise are of little use. If the model of
IMT / WUA fails, it will cause huge loss to the state exchequer not only in investments on capacity building, but
also in the form of such assets that are now more badly damaged projects and repairs of which will be very
Costly. Till now there is no book / government direction on the new role of WRD, DOA in the concept of WUA.
Therefore their roles have been defined and the concept of Water Master and grading system of WUAs has been
proposed in Chapter 10 and 11.
Technological innovations and progress has created high agricultural production, low water consumption and
cost reduction in production. In India, still the costs of productions are heavy and productions are not high in
spite of huge investments and efforts.
Severe environmental effects such as water logging, soil salinity, stagnant pools of foul water, degradation of
quality of surface and ground water, permanent droughts and poison in food are now not uncommon. Irrigated
agriculture with high doses of fertilizers, pesticides and polluted water are responsible to a large extent, besides
many other causes.
Efficient irrigation does no not require huge calculations or huge manpower or huge investments in drip /
sprinklers. But it requires only a strong will, proper operational plan of the project and reallocation (diversion)
of subsidies to furrows and borders. Even the cost of huge turnouts can be curtailed through siphon tubes.
Saving in water does not warrant heavy investment in lining of canals. It does not decrease water
consumption. Rather un- lined canals are more warranted to recharge ground water and save huge investments.
All these aspects are discussed from Chapter 2 to 10.
Recharge of ground water in urban areas / fields through costly structures do not increase availability of rain
fall or too much increase in ground water. It only redistributes availability to a limited extent. It cannot be done
to the extent of natural recharge. Rather may pollute ground water. Over drafting cannot be replenished more
than the normal recharge.
Water shed works, water harvesting in fields and all storage reservoirs (small, medium and large) increases
evaporation and reduces availability of overall water and runoff in semiarid regions. However these are useful
at local level to enhance water availability at local places as well as to longer time in arid regions (deserts). All
of them are required only to a limited extent according to the hydro-metrology of a region and a compromising
policy is required to make use of investments done. Unbalanced investments are making many huge
investments redundant. Our open wells, boweries, kunds etc. then small reservoirs and now tube wells have
become and remaining are becoming redundant (these have gone dry). Medium and large reservoirs are
suffering low inflow. No amount of cleaning them can bring water in them.
Higher agricultural production and irrigation efficiencies cannot be achieved unless and until the DOA lays
a heavy stress in the irrigation at field and its evaluation.
V

2. This book deals with a very low cost efficient operation of irrigation projects in conjunction with efficient
agriculture of high production at low cost. It explains as to
How Do We Reach to our Goals?
There are two key ingredients to maximizing agricultural production from a given and limited volume of water:
people and technology. Of these, people are more important. The best and most innovative technology in the
world is of no use if people themselves cannot use it, see no advantage in it or do not understand it. In general
all farmers are interested to increase their production, learn and adopt latest technology to the extent it is
economical, long lasting and easy. If it is inconvenient and not cost effective, they very quickly discard the same.
There are only following 10 points in the order of priority to increase productivity of agriculture and save
water along with the responsibility of the department
1. Irrigation scheduling of crops (DOA), can save water and increase yield by 15 to 20% (see figure 6.38 to 6.44)
2. Adoption of furrow methods of irrigation (DOA), can save water and increase yield by 10 to 15% (see figure 6.38 to 6.44)
3. Canal scheduling (DOA and WRD), can save water by 10 to15% (see figure 3.15 to 3.21)
4. (DOA), can save water and increase yield by 10 to 15% (see figure 6.44 to 6.45)Evaluation of performance of fields
5. Adoption of layout of field including surface drainage (DOA and WRD), can save water and increase yield by 15 to 20% (see
figure 6.14 to 6.27 6.45 and 10.3)
6. Adoption of advance agriculture technology (AAT) (DOA), can save water and increase yield by 15 to 20% (see paragraph 1.9)
7. Adoption of conjunctive use of surface and ground water (DOA), can save water and increase yield by 15 to 20% (see figure 3.16
to 3.17)
8. Evaluation of WUAs (DOA and WRD), can save water and increase yield by 15 to 20% (see tables 11.1 to 11.7 and figure 11.1,
11.2 and 11.6)
9. Essential Improvements in irrigation system (WRD and DOA), can save water by 15 to 20% (see figure 3.3,3.6,3.11and 3.13 )
10. Changes in agriculture and subsidy policy to include all above aspects can save water and increase yield by 30 to 45
% (see figure 10.2 to 10.6 and 11.3 to 11.6)
(vi)
Thus without any investments, efficiency and food production can be increased by 10 to 60 %, simply by a
good peration of irrigation projects and evaluation of irrigation fields. Further it can be increased byO
another 10 to 0% with minor investments in improvements of water courses and layout of irrigation2
system in the fields. One mportant condition is that DOA and WRD stop blaming each other and farmersi
and start working from the asiest point, slowly tough points will follow. All above items are beyond thee
capacity of WUA and it can only help he DOA and WRD. Those who say that without renovation,t
improvement, automation etc. (Huge investments) are xperts to make fool of educated wise people ase
they know that these will never act and have thousands of excuses.