Irrigation Projects

The systematic way of use of water for agriculture, municipalities is called as irrigation. In country like India which receives precipitation only in rainy season, so during rainy season the storage of water is carried out in water tanks, lakes, dams and this stored water is then utilized for entire period. This lifecycle is so designed to have optimum use of water for whole season. India has highest area of irrigated land in world. The irrigation systems has history of pre British rule period. Fud system and shah canal are examples of this. British made foundation of irrigation system by constructing Dams: earthen as well as gravity types. The dams are useful not only in irrigation but also in flood mitigation, power generation. The water stored is supplied through irrigation chanels called canals.
Though India have highest irrigated land but the per hectare yield of crop is much lower compared to developed system such as Israel.
This is the major area of improvement. A country whose entire economy lies on output of agriculture sector and 55% jobs are still related to it making it largest sector of economic distribution it is much essential to.have high output per hecatre to complete the food demand.
In India the irrgation works are carried out by state governments as well central.The role of union govt is analyse and approve the major essential projects.
Recently it was highlighted that major Irrigation Projects cost has been substantially increased and there are several scams. However it is the only one side of coin which media highlighted to increase the TRP.
The Projects have a defined lifecycle, defined parameters and defined Structural designs.Based on which they get awarded. However, during actual execution many factor affects the cost of projects.These factors are must to be considered and there should be healthy discussions so as to have a conclusive idea about cost escalations. The projects have a time period in tender. However during actual execution the land required for projects is mostly not cleared in country like India, where policy for acquisition of land is yet to refrain. This considerable time span has increase the cost in many ways. The land cost itself is increasing in astronomical passion. Construction materials cement, sand, steel have seen tremendous rise in prices. Opposition to specific land and request of diversion of route for canals again results in cost over runs. The fuel prices are also sharply increased more than double the economy. Cost of rehabilitation has not been mostly considered while preparing the DPR (Detailed Project Reports). This are uncontrollable factors and cannot be specifically estimated at the time of preparation of DPR.


Let us have a look on Narmada Dam. The Sardar Sarovar Dam is a gravity dam on the Narmada River near Navagam, Gujarat, India. It is the largest dam and part of the Narmada Valley Project, a large hydraulic engineering project involving the construction of a series of large irrigation and hydroelectric multi-purpose dams on the Narmada River. The project took form in 1979 as part of a development scheme to increase irrigation and produce hydroelectricity. This dam is partly completed in 2008, around 31 years after which it was planned. There is displacement of around 2 lakh people including rehabilitation cost. The entire DPR cost was 650 crore in 1980 is escalated to 40,000 crore. So does it mean Govt made 39,350 Crore rupees scam is the question. If we focus on the parameters mentioned then we will realize that the land cost, material cost, idle charges of machinery, delays during court matters have affect this in major way. Now a days a new trend has been set by local politicos is to intervene the Infrastructure Projects and oppose them to have their own benefits. This has hampered the growth of our economy and the pace is just 4.5%-5% as per S&P remarks. So shall we focus on facts than the “paid writers” impractical solutions such as not have large dams and blab blab la.