FEASIBILITY AND SUSTAINABILITY ASSESSMENT OF CANAL WATER FED MICRO IRRIGATION SYSTEM

Abstract

Irrigation plays an important role in the sustainability of agriculture and farm yield improvements. The Indian government has made substantial investments in the development of irrigation projects; however, due to seepage loss in canal conveyance and inefficient surface flooding water application methods in the canal command, there is a significant gap in the utilization of created irrigation potential and utilized. Indian government realized the necessity of water-efficient irrigation methods. It offered subsidies for adopting micro irrigation to improve water use efficiency and maximize the use of available water resources. Most modernization works focus on implementing micro irrigation for tube well irrigation systems, which is a problem since 64% of Indian districts experienced a water table decline between 2002 and 2016. Keeping this in mind, the present study work is conducted in the command area of Gadarjudda minor of the Upper Ganga Canal located in Haridwar district, Uttarakhand, India to assess the viability of micro irrigation in the whole minor command area. This is done by evaluating the current canal status, designing the gravity flow piped irrigation network, and conducting a social survey to see farmers' willingness, awareness, and purchasing capacity toward adopting drip sprinkler systems in their farms. The sustainability of the system is analyzed based on government-industry-farmer roles. High conveyance loss, erratic water distribution, and deficit tail-end water availability showed the importance of piped irrigation in the study area. The profile of the minor canal was sufficient to allow gravity flow in the pipe, with velocity and pressure head within the permissible limits. Farmers showed a high level of willingness (85%) to adopt micro irrigation but a low level of purchasing capacity (36%). For sustainability of micro irrigation in Gadarjudda minor government subsidy, awareness among farmers, WUA formation, and piped irrigation network are deemed mandatory.