Rainfed Agriculture

30 districts in Delhi-NCR had contaminated groundwater in 2019: Water Minister

Maharashtra is the second largest sugar producing state in India, after Uttar Pradesh where as high as 1.6 million farmers cultivate sugarcane on 0.7 million hectares of land. The sugarcane industry provides direct employment to about 0.16 million workers while 1.5 million workers engage in sugarcane harvesting and transport operations every year.

While Maharashtra boasts of having the largest cooperative sugar mills in India, private sugar mills are gaining prominence over cooperative mills over the last few years.

The challenges to sustain groundwater dependency in India are many where groundwater over extraction is not only leading to rapid depletion of the resource, but also giving rise to water quality issues in a situation where the response at the level of policy continues to be lukewarm.

“Every single number in the budget, be it receipts or expenditure is a lie. The budget numbers can no longer be trusted, as the difference between actual expenditure and budget estimates are off by around 25 percent. The year ends at the end of March, and the estimates are based on data only till the end of December, so the estimate of receipts and expenditure in the next three months is a lie,” says Jayati Ghosh, Professor of Economics at Jawaharlal Nehru University at a panel discussion organised by the Centre for Budget and Governance Accountability (CBGA) in New Delhi recently.

Union Finance Minister Ms. Nirmala Sitharaman presented the decade's first union budget in the parliament on 1st February 2020. While presenting budget for 2020-2021, she started with the country’s vision for the decade in which she emphasised on water management and clean rivers as one of the 10 points of vision for the country. The announcement assumes importance in the light of NITI Aayog’s grim estimate that around half of the country’s population or approximately 600 million people face high to extreme water stress.

The water crisis in Karnataka has not only led to severe agrarian distress in the eastern plains region but also created an acute shortage of domestic water, in both rural and urban areas. The 21st century has seen significant changes in demography, economy and agriculture, increasing the demand for water in the state. Expanding irrigation and urbanisation, possibly have also had a negative impact on river basins and water conflicts are seeing a rise in the state. All these developments have substantially complicated and aggravated the water challenges in Karnataka.

A recent study by the Council on Energy, Environment and Water offers insights into Zero Budget Natural Farming (ZBNF) vis-à-vis its effect on the economics of agriculture in Andhra Pradesh. The study titled ‘Can Zero Budget Natural Farming Save Input Costs and Fertiliser Subsidies? Evidence from Andhra Pradesh’ compares costs of ZBNF inputs and practices with the costs of chemical inputs such as fertilisers and pesticides for the farmer.

A committee has been constituted to draft a new National Water Policy (NWP) and make key changes in the water governance structure and regulatory framework. It is chaired by Mihir Shah, who is a former Planning Commission member and a water expert. The committee is expected to produce a report within six months. The Revitalising Rainfed Agriculture (RRA) Network, a pan India network working on evolving operational processes for planning and convergence to facilitate the revival of rainfed agriculture has made its submission to the committee drafting the NWP.

Droughts are becoming common in India

This compendium by Mihir Kumar Maitra is a valuable resource for all practitioners engaged in watershed management activities in the field. The first part of the book addresses the technical and engineering aspects useful in developing natural resources like land, surface water, groundwater, crops and forest while the second part discusses aspects related to  formulation, appraisal and implementation of watershed projects by involving the beneficiaries in the process.