Amidst the Government efforts, the PPP route should be explored to bring down to avoid looming water crisis in agriculture. Discuss (200 Words)
Refer - Financial Express
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IAS Parliament 5 years
KEY POINTS
· Groundwater extraction is so severe that the country’s water table is falling at the rate of 0.3 m per year.
· Bad agricultural policies—both at the central and the state level—have meant that just four crops (rice, wheat, cotton, and sugarcane), accounting for just 46% of the country’s gross cropped area, take up 65% of the gross irrigated area, and consume 70% of all the water used in agriculture.
· The Centre and Nabard have created a Rs 5,000 crore fund to promote micro-irrigation under the Pradhan Mantri Krishi Sinchayee Yojana.
· Just 11.58 lakh hectares were covered under micro-irrigation in 2018-19, against a net sown area of 14.1 crore hectares, and the total area under micro-irrigation currently stands at just 1.02 crore hectares.
· This makes a strong case for roping in the private sector to supplement government efforts, especially in irrigation infrastructure creation and management, if India is to reduce agricultural wastage of water.
· The El Guerdane project in Morocco that involves a 300-km irrigation network built by the private partner in a PPP endeavour to distribute water to farmers in Guerdane; while the private partner was selected on the basis of the lowest water tariff quoted, this worked out to be lower than the costs farmers used to incur on groundwater-fed irrigation.
· In Bihar’s Vaishali district, a local small-farmers association is implementing a pay-as-you-go model, with support from an international development agency, which has brought in responsible water usage.
Shivangi 5 years
Please review.
IAS Parliament 5 years
Good answer.Try to Stick to word limit. Keep Writing.
