- State government promises 5.6 lakh hectares more land under irrigation in the next 5 years.

- This when its earlier promise of bringing at least 35% area under irrigation still requires 5.15 lakh ha to be covered in another less than 3 years. 
- The question therefore is “can this be really achieved or the government is fooling around with the people of the state?”
- Water Initiatives Orissa hopes that government talks straight and act in right earnest to achieve the desired target and not end up in absurdity again.


Sambalpur, September 17, 2009

The government has promised irrigation for 5.6 lakh hectares in 5 years, carried a newspaper recently. At a time when drought looms large over the state, this looks a very welcome step. A peep into the recent memory lines however does not allow us to believe this and we are prompted to say “Oh… what an absurdity again!” Does not it sound rhetoric again? The Water Initiatives Orissa (WIO) has termed this as mere rhetoric and attempt to cover-up inefficiency. “The WIO has grounds to say this but in this case we want our experience to fail us because our state needs irrigation, badly,” said Ranjan K Panda, Covenor of WIO. 

Remember, not many years ago, the state government had made its plan public to bring at least 35 percent of each Block under irrigation cover within the 11th plan period (2007-12). It had estimated that a further 660,073 ha of additional coverage will be required to bring the deficient Blocks (those which had less than 35 % irrigation cover by year 2004-05) to achieve the 35 % irrigation target. 

We are already half way of that plan period. And again going by the government figures, only 187,497 ha of land has been brought under irrigation cover till now. With this coverage 29 deficit Blocks have been brought under 35 percent or more of irrigation cover. This is not at all an impressive achievement. Going by the original plan to bring each and every block under at least 35 percent of irrigation cover, it is required to bring a minimum of 5,15,023 ha. of land in still-deficit-Blocks in less than 3 years time. In other words, in order to get every block of the State with at least 35 percent irrigation cover, 2.75 times more efforts and more cover is required in the next half of the plan period than what has been achieved in the first half of the plan period. 

The news that we just read says the government is planning to create irrigation in 5.6 lakh hectares of land in five years and not the next two and half years. Considering that not all of these programmed new irrigation coverage will go to deficit Blocks, we are natural in our doubt that the 35 percent achievement in the coming five years is a mere rhetoric and there are remote chances of it being achieved in reality.

This news item brings to us another interesting aspect that forces us to confirm the absurdity again. ‘A target has been fixed to extend irrigation facilities to 35 per cent of cultivable land in every block during the next two years’, mentions the news item. Well, we are perplexed at this kind of statements. When the government is planning to cover 5.6 lakh hectares in the next 5 years in the whole of Orissa, how can it bring about 5.15 lakh ha. under irrigation in deficit Blocks alone in just 2 years?

“Even if we don’t want to believe, this seems to be absurdity at its best. And we demand the government to make its strategy further clear so that we prove ourselves wrong. We want to, seriously”, said Mr Panda and reminded that “the state needs irrigation - Badly than ever before”. 

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For further information, please contact:

Ranjan Panda
Convener
Water Initiatives Orissa
C/O: Manav Adhikar Seva Samiti
Sambalpur, 768005, Orissa, INDIA
Phone: +91 663 2540043/ 2540067
  +91 94370 50103
Email: ranjanpanda@gmail.com
  waterinitiativesorissa@gmail.com

About WIO : Water Initiatives Orissa (known in Orissa as Jala Jivana Abhijan) is a decade old campaign which draws strength from civil society organizations, grassroots communities, academicians and others who are determined to work on water, disasters and climate change issues. It is currently housed at MASS, a civil society organisation based at Sambalpur which has been working with local communities to promote sustainable development.