India is facing a harsh water crisis due to inefficient utilisation in the agriculture sector, industrial and human waste and lack of proper government planning.
Due to the lack of laws and measures to regulate water usage, and in many cases, unrestricted access of electricity by the government to farmers, water is pumped round the clock; most farmers rely on traditional methods of flood irrigation to grow their crops.
The adoption of micro-irrigation by farmers provides a clear solution that not only drastically curbs water usage, but also delivers other benefits to farmers like improved yields, cost savings, and higher profits.
Micro-irrigation is a process of slow water application via discrete or continuous drips, tiny streams, or miniature sprays on, above, or below the soil by surface drip, subsurface drip, bubbler, or micro-sprinkler systems.
The government of India launched a program called, ‘Pradhan Mantri Krishi Sinchai Yojana’ more specifically, the ‘Per Drop More Crop’ component of the scheme focuses on micro-irrigation systems that promote precision farming by making water available in a targeted manner to the root zone of crops.
Flood irrigation delivers only 35-40 percent water use efficiency, as opposed to micro-irrigation which has up to 90 percent efficiency. Unfortunately, the coverage of micro irrigation is just 2.13 percent which is meagre as compared to their total potential in India.
Micro-irrigation technique has been successful in developed countries like Israel in turning around their national water crisis. So, no doubt India can do it too but as micro-irrigation requires initial investments and most of our farmers are small and marginal, so we require a multipronged approach and support from the Government to resolve the looming water crisis in India.
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