Irrigation

• Water is the greatest resource of humanity. It not only helps in survival also helps in making life comfortable and luxurious. Besides various Other uses of water, the largest use of water in the world is made for irrigating lands.

• Irrigation, in fact, is nothing but “a continuous and a reliable water supply to the different crops in accordance with their different needs”. When sufficient and timely water does not become available to the crops, the crops. fade away, resulting in lesser crop yield, consequently creating famines anti disasters. Irrigation can, thus, save us from such disasters.

• The fact that the provision of irrigation facilities can enhance the yield of our crops by a large extent, can be found from the fact that in Madhya Pradesh State, the crops yield is only 40% more than that in Punjab State, while the cropped area in Madhya Pradesh is about 3 times that in Punj ab. The reason is that the gross area under irrigation in Madhya Pradesh is only about 30% as compared to about 91% in Punjab. On average in India, the yield from irrigated land is about 2.5 tonnes/ hectare; while that from the unirrigated land is about 0.5 tonnes/hectare.

• It can, therefore, be concluded that if full irrigation facilities are not developed, the production of food grains shall be reduced, as the yield of different crops will be reduced. And, if sufficient food grains are not available, the people will remain hungry, leading to all-around chaos, looting, and economic destruction of the country, hampering its progress & prosperity. ln the light of these facts, it can be easily emphasized that ‘irrigation’ is inevitable, at least in every tropical or subtropical country like India.