Stepping towards sustainable development! Govt gives clarion call for new ways to curb farm water
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New Delhi, Aug. 21: After a technological revolution, India is still largely an agricultural country. After coming into power again, Modi 2.0 is committedly working for sustainable development of agriculture. Now, taking a more constructive step for agriculture, the government is all set to present a series of measures to reduce water consumption in India’s agricultural sector.
As per the official statement, the agriculture sector disproportionately uses a high amount of 89% of the country’s entire groundwater. The new steps will try to ensure more sustainable methods of cultivation, as large parts of the country routinely face water crisis amid alarming levels of groundwater depletion.
The proposals under consideration include making drip irrigation mandatory for sugarcane, one of the two biggest water-guzzling crops, along with paddy. Uttar Pradesh (which has the largest area under cane), Maharashtra, Gujarat, Bihar, Karnataka, Tamil Nadu, and Gujarat are the largest sugarcane growing states. In states where sugarcane is grown, it consumes between 60-70% of the available water.
The government is likely to formulate policies to shift a major chunk of rice cultivation out of Punjab and Haryana to rain-surplus regions of the country. This will ensure that groundwater will not come under excessive pressure in large parts of northern India.
Not only this but the government is also looking at how farmers can be motivated to shift to solar-powered farms to cut down on electricity consumption.
The government has estimated that Indian sugarcane plantations consume less water than the global average, but they are less efficient than South Africa and Thailand.
As per the official statement, on average, India gets around 5.2 kg of sugarcane with one cubic meter of water. This is better than the global average of 4.80 kg/m3. However, South Africa produces up to 7.8 kg with the same quantity of water and Thailand gets between 5.8 and 6.5 kg/m3 of water. Drip irrigation is a method of micro-irrigation that releases small amounts of water at regular intervals at the roots of any crop. It is used extensively across the world for sugarcane plantations.
Recently, Union minister for Jal Shakti, Gajendra Shekhawat said that to grow one kilogram of paddy, 5,600 liters of water is being consumed whereas China produces the same amount of paddy with just 330-400 liters of water.
The water ministry has proposed to a panel set up by Prime Minister Modi to review agriculture and rural development sectors moving to a production system of alternative crops, depending on agro-climatic zones, better irrigation system and financial incentives to farmers for optimal water usage.
Shekhawat said that out of the 178.7 million rural households in the country, only 32.7 million or 18% got drinking water from the tap connections.