Page 94 - economic review

AGRICULTURE AND ALLIED SECTORS66

without actually increasing the stress on available water resources. This technique enables frequent
application of small amounts of water direct to the root zone of the plant thereby enabling minimal
surface evaporation, runoff and deep percolation losses. It is an efficient method having an overall
irrigation efficiency of 90%. Various types of micro irrigation systems adopted in India are Drip
irrigation, Sprinkler irrigation, Porous irrigation & Rain –Gun irrigation. As part of promoting micro
irrigation technologies in the country, GOI has launched a Micro Irrigation scheme during VIII Five
Year Plan. The implementation of the project in Kerala is very slow.

2.114 To analyse the importance and adoption of micro irrigation projects, a study was conducted
during 2011 covering nine states (EPW, 2011). Kerala was one among the chosen states. In Kerala,
the percentage of utilization of actual area against the potential under Micro Irrigation is only 7.77. It
is 7.89% & 7.19% for drip & sprinkler irrigation respectively. Another factor revealed was that majority
of the farmers who were adopting Micro Irrigation in Kerala are marginal farmers ( 52%) followed by
small (28%) and large farmers (20%). As a part of popularizing the technique, recommendations
and suggestions were sought from them. Accordingly, 73.33 % of large farmers demanded that there
should not be any farm ceiling followed by demand for more technical support (70 % ) whereas
small and marginal farmers demanded for more technical support (66.67% and 50% respectively).

2.115 An evaluation study on Integrated scheme of Micro Irrigation was done by Planning
Commission on January 2014. Major findings of the study and suggestions are shown in the box.
Even though Kerala is not covered in the study, some of the suggestions are relevant to Kerala also.

Box No: 2.2
Salient features of Evaluation study on Micro Irrigation schemes

Study was carried out in 198 villages from 33 districts across 10 sample states, viz Punjab,
Haryana, MP, Gujarat. Odisha, AP, Karnataka, Chattisgarh, Rajastan & Maharashtra.

Major Findings

• Cost benefit analysis reveals that the benefit cost ratio is much higher than the conventional
methods. For drip irrigation, the ratio is as high as 2.90 & 2.14 respectively for a farmer
cultivating turmeric, cotton and corn. For sprinkler irrigation, ratios are 3.63 & 3.09
respectively for cultivating garlic, coriander and gram.

• Competency and skill of farmers add to the effectiveness of the technique by judicious
selection of crops and also by the method of intercropping.

• Application of fertigation through MI system enables significant reduction in the consumption
rate of fertilizer by an overall average of 24%.

• There has been a considerable reduction of farm labour requirements by over a quarter
particularly during the application of irrigation and weeding.

• Rajasthan & AP recorded highest area coverage under sprinkler irrigation system and drip
irrigation system respectively.

• Rate of return from drip irrigation was in the range of 48% to 153% while that of sprinkler
irrigation varied from 44 % to 144 %.

Suggestions

• Strategies/ Policies should be framed depending on the conditions prevalent in a particular
locality.

• Conduct of feasibility study and preparation of perspective plan should be made mandatory
and the implementation should be carried out by a single agency within the state.

• Monitoring mechanism should be improved
• As the skill of farmers enhances the potentiality of micro irrigation, awareness on MI

schemes and technology is very essential.

Kerala State Planning Board