The Hindu Business Line : Irrigation benefits

The report "Rs 35,000 crore infusion fails to lift irrigation benefits" (Business Line, March 6) has not presented the full facts and the conclusions drawn are not correct. There has been considerable increase in the irrigation potential created since the inception of the Accelerated Irrigation Benefits Programme (AIBP). The actual irrigation potential created up to the end of the Seventh Plan was 86 million hectares (mh), and it is now about 101 mh.

Even if we consider creation of 4.92 mh at the expenditure of Rs 35,000 crore (as given in the report), the cost works out to be Rs 71,000 per hectare, which is lower than the average cost of creation, which is more than Rs 1 lakh per hectare. This can on no account be considered bad economics.

The net irrigated area (that is, actual geographical area under irrigation) and gross irrigated area (taking into account multiple cropping) in the country have been steadily increasing, as also the growth of the agriculture production. Further, from the land-use statistics, compiled by the Ministry of Agriculture, it is apparent that the gross irrigated area has increased from 71.35 mh in 1996-97 to 76.82 mh in 2003-04.

It is also to be understood that creation of water resources infrastructure in a vast and diverse country like India is not a short-term task. In independent India, irrigation planning commenced since the beginning of the era of planned development, when mega projects such as Bhakra-Nangal and Hirakud were started. AIBP assistance to selected irrigation projects was provided during the Ninth and the Tenth Plan period. Whereas the irrigation potential created in the Eighth Plan was only 2.22 mh, in the Ninth, it rose to 4.22 mh and in the Tenth Plan it is likely to be 5.74 mh. Contribution of potential from AIBP-assisted schemes during the Ninth Plan was 40 per cent and in the Tenth Plan it is 55 per cent, which proves that a definite fillip was provided by AIBP to the growth of irrigation potential. The annual rate of creation of potential increased from 0.44 mh in the Seventh and Eighth Plan period to 1.04 mh during the Tenth Plan period.

Sanjay Kumar

Media and Communications Officer

Ministry of Water Resources

Our correspondent responds:

Going by the data presented in your rejoinder, during the Ninth and Tenth Plan period (covering 1997-98 to 2006-07), the country would be creating almost 10 million hectares of additional irrigation potential, of which roughly half is on account of AIBP. But the question we are raising is why has all this not translated into an increase in the `actual' irrigated area, which has hovered at 71-77 million hectares in gross terms and 53-57 million hectares in net terms during this period? In fact, the irrigated area under cotton and oilseeds has even fallen, while rising marginally for cereals and pulses. This is as against increases of 10 mh each recorded during the 1970s and the 1980s, when there was no AIBP. These are facts and by no means `biased and negative reporting'. In any case, less charitable observations on AIBP's performance has been made by the Comptroller and Auditor General of India (CAG) in its Report No. 15 of 2004 (Civil). Among other things, it noted that over 35 of the expenditures under AIBP were "diverted, parked or mis-utilised."

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