The Hindu : Andhra Pradesh News : Focus on micro irrigation

Online edition of India's National Newspaper
Tuesday, Jul 03, 2007
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Andhra Pradesh

Andhra Pradesh

Focus on micro irrigation

Staff Reporter

State implementing AP Micro Irrigation Project since 2003

In Andhra Pradesh the per capita availability of water is less than 1,400 cubic meters
So far 2.75 lakh hectares have been covered with drip and sprinkler systems

GUNTUR: Micro irrigation is the need of the hour as the gap between demand and supply of water for agriculture purposes was increasing, Officer on Special Duty (Technical) of Andhra Pradesh Micro Irrigation Project in Department of Horticulture K. Yella Reddy said on Monday.

Delivering the keynote address at the Civil Engineering Department of Bapatla Engineering College, at a day’s seminar organised in association with Institution of Engineers (India) Student Chapter on ‘micro irrigation – need of the hour’, he said that micro irrigation would improve water use efficiency and enhance crop productivity.

Owing to ever-increasing demand for water from different sectors, availability for agriculture was decreasing day by day.

Currently 82 per cent of the water resource created in the country was being used in irrigation sector. Projections for the future indicate that the availability of water for agriculture would go down to 75 per cent as per the Planning Commission report.

Except rice, micro irrigation can be adopted for any type of crop. However, it was more beneficial for horticulture crops like fruits, vegetables, flower etc.

In Andhra Pradesh the per capita availability of water was less than 1,400 cubic meters as against the requirement of 1,700 cubic meters.

In view of this scarcity, the Government had been implementing a mega project called AP Micro Irrigation Project since 2003.

Under this project, so far 2.75 lakh hectares had been covered with drip and sprinkler systems.

The government was helping farmers by providing subsidy up to 70 per cent subject to a ceiling of Rs.50,000. Government had fixed a minimum target of 1.2 lakh hectares out of which 20,000 had been already covered, he pointed out.

The OSD talked about ‘virtual water’ and said that that 1 kg of rice needs only 3,000 litres of water when scientific water management was adopted.

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