Drought tests Madhya Pradesh irrigation drive

For Kamlesh Patidar, a marginal farmer in Somiya village, this financial year has been no ordinary drought. In 2008, he had surrendered some of his land to the state government for a small dam in his village. The dam was completed in 2012 to irrigate 754 hectares. Now Patidar is trying to save his garlic crop by using piped water from the other side of the road. Patidar's fellow farmers are digging wells in nearby fields.

Most farmers in Malhargarh tehsil of Mandsaur district have left sowing mid-way due to the drought. Mandsaur is among the 23 districts in Madhya Pradesh that have been declared drought-hit.

"I surrendered my land for this dam, which has dried up this year due to scanty rainfall," Patidar says. "The purpose of building a dam here has no meaning for any farmer in this area."

"We will conduct a hydrological study of the dam to know why it has dried up this season," says Swatantra Kumar Singh, district collector of Mandsaur.

The Madhya Pradesh government has set itself a target of irrigating four million hectares by 2018. This is after a fourfold rise in the state's irrigation capacity in the past five years, an achievement that bagged Madhya Pradesh a central government award.

Fourteen major and medium irrigation projects are under way in the state to bring 737,000 hectares under irrigation. "We will add more projects to reach the four million hectare target. Projects like Bansagar, Kundalia, Mohanpura, Pench and Bansujara will add 500,000 hectares to the state's irrigated land," says Jayant Malaiya, Madhya Pradesh's minister for water resources. "All major and minor projects will require an additional investment of Rs 14,700 crore."

The state has increased its irrigation cover to 2.45 million hectares from 2.30 million hectares last year. "At this pace, we will be able to attain six million hectares of irrigation cover by 2021," Malaiya adds. Madhya Pradesh has a Rs 7,463 crore budgetary provision in 2015-16 for irrigation, up from Rs 1,748 crore in 2014-15.

The central government recently sanctioned Rs 2,033 crore as relief for Madhya Pradesh's drought-affected farmers, to which the state government has added Rs 3,267 crore. As many as 127 tehsils of the state have been declared drought-hit this year, among them are six tehsils of Mandsaur district. But Malhargarh is not on the list.