SYSTEMS ANALYSIS OF KRISHNA IRRIGATION PROJECT

Abstract

Day by day the issue of making use of resources available judicially is becoming essential. In case of water resources projects attempts have to be made to utilise the main resources, i.e., land and water optimally. In this context, water resources systems analysis has now been generally accepted to provide an efficient way of answering the numerous questions regarding-planning of complex water resources systems for which the conventional methods of analysis will be inadequate. The approach and appropriate technique will naturally vary from problem to problem as the configuration, state of development of the system and stage of decision making is likely to vary over a vast range. The most commonly suggested approach has been first to screen all alternative configurations with mathematical programming technique to determine the most attractive alternatives then further screen them with a detailed simulation. In the present study an attempt has been made to carry out the systems analysis of Krishna Irrigation Project, Maharashtra state. The Krishna Irrigation Project (Maharashtra) consists of two parallel reservoirs namely Dhom and Kanher. This project envisages the total irrigation of 74,000 ha irrigable command area (ICA) with canal network consisting of five main canals. The irrigable command area (74,000 ha) consists of the ICAs of both reservoirs (Dhom = 32,925, Kanher = 10,070 ha) and one additional command in and zone in Sangli district called as Arphal command (31,005 ha). The Arphal command has been proposed to be irrigated by diverting the water from both reservoirs. In addition to, this, there is demand of municipal and industrial (M and I) water supply in Satara district. So far as stage of development is concerned, the construction activity of project is almost completed except few kms of A.L.B.C. and irrigation in Dhom and Kanher command is already commissioned. At present this project is facing with acute shortage of water to cater the requirement of 74,000 ha ICA and M and I water supply need. On the other hand Government of Maharashtra does not desire to make any curtailment in the proposed ICA and M and requirement. Apparently the solution to this problem is to dilute the cropping pattern suitably. In view of the configuration, stage of development and problem of the project, this project has been selected for systems analysis. The approach of "Optimization-Simulation" has been adopted. In the first screening, the cropping pattern was optimized with the help of linear programming technique. The L.P. Model with 169 decision variables and 271 constraints (excluding crop area constraint) was formulated for Krishna Irrigation Project as a whole. The various alternatives have been carried out on "LINDO" package and finally two cropping patterns with condition (1) Considering the monthly inflows of the 75% dependable year determined on the basis of observed data. (2) Considering the monthly inflows of the 75% dependable year as per CDO study (1990), have been selected as trial set for simulation study. In, the second phase, simulation study was carried out. Various alternatives have been simulated. Finally, in this study, it is recommended that the existing cropping pattern may be replaced by the cropping pattern which is optimized cropping pattern with condition (2) above and irrigable command area may be increased from 74,000 ha to 77,700 ha i.e., 5% more than irrigable command area proposed in the project report.