As dry spell continues, irrigation must step up — not stall

Severe rainfall deficit has gripped a vast part of the State, prompting the government to declare five districts as drought-hit. The vagaries of the monsoons are known to impact the State’s agriculture adversely and things certainly stand to take a turn for the worse with climate change-triggered weather aberrations now becoming more and more pronounced.

Amid such a distressing scenario, a sound irrigation system could have provided a lot of succour to the harrowed farmers. Unfortunately, the State’s irrigation system continues to be a picture in stark contrast to the woes of the tillers when they are going through a prolonged spell of reduced rainfall activities.

While climatic aberrations characterised by drought-like situations as also unseasonal rainfalls and floods have made it all the more imperative to have a sound irrigation network, the prevailing situation hardly inspires any confidence. As of today, a meagre 14 percent of the State’s total agricultural land is covered by irrigation. And the most intriguing part is that this status quo has persisted for decades!

The inertia of the Irrigation Department stands exposed by the defunct status of a large number of irrigation projects across the State. Official data puts less than 2,500 of the 4,000 irrigation projects as functional. When viewed against the substantial Central funds that have been coming for irrigation purposes for years, it becomes apparent that an unprofessional and corruption-riddled implementation process has ensured that the coterie of contractors, officials and politicians remain the sole beneficiary even as the farmers languish.

While the official irrigation coverage of cropland is pathetic, the actual coverage is bound to be even less given that many irrigation schemes have virtually no existence beyond official files. It is a poor reflection on the State government that the vast farming community in a largely agrarian State like Assam has little access to irrigation facilities. Let alone streamlining the redundant irrigation system, successive State governments have, over the years, failed to properly utilise the Central funds sanctioned for the purpose. Given that climate change calls for reorienting our strategies to meet the emerging challenges, an efficient irrigation network has to be at the core of the strategy to save agriculture from the vagaries of Nature. With the abundance of surface water due to the State’s large network of rivers and wetlands, revamping the irrigation sector should not have been a Herculean task. With the importance of irrigation now universally realised, even the arid States of the country have come up with efficient water-use models to boost agriculture. Timely and accountable utilisation of Central funds needs to be ensured so that the toiling farming community gets some succour.