TN govt to automate irrigation, water flow

In a pioneering initiative, the water-short state of Tamil Nadu will be automating the operation of its canal system, irrigation assets and water bodies by using the latest technologies and developing an Enterprises Information Management System (EIMS).

This is part of a five-year, $550-million (Rs 2,520-crore) World Bank project, sanctioned in 2008, to expand and revamp the state’s irrigation systems and water bodies. The information technology part of the project is about $200 million (Rs 900 crore). This IT automation is meant to allow the state authorities to release and control the flow of irrigated water from a remote location, based on real-time demand of farmers across the state.

Such automation of a water system is prevalent in Australia and parts of the US, but is a new concept elsewhere. The Tamil Nadu government issued a request for an expression of interest (EoI) in December 2009 to design, develop and implement an EIMS. Most Indian and global IT companies — including Infosys, TCS, IBM, Capgemini and Accenture — are understood to have bid for the three-year contract, the deadline for which has just ended.

The tender document states that other than designing, developing and implementing the EMIS, the IT vendor would be responsible for providing solutions to promote the use of basic IT infrastructure and create an enabling environment to develop the EMIS. The partner will also be responsible for a need assessment, including outlining a future vision and information management strategy.

Santosh Babu, managing director of the Electronics Corporation of Tamil Nadu and Director of eGovernance for the state government, said it had high hopes from it. Vibhu Nayar, Director for World Bank Assisted Projects in the state government, said the idea was to change the way water was used. “We are trying to adopt the latest technologies available in the world in this project, which requires a high level of automation,” he said.

Tamil Nadu has 85 dams and reservoirs operated by the public works department and another 38 dams run by the Tamil Nadu Electricity Board. Plus, 39,000 water tanks, of which 10,000 are owned by the PWD. These water assets are capable of irrigating 6.9 million acres.

Said a senior official of a global IT firm that is bidding: “This is a unique project, where the application of IT would touch farmers. The real-time control, monitoring and release of water based on their real-time requirement will not only improve water productivity, but will save wastage.” He said it was the first time IT would be used to automate water resources in India. “So far we were seeing this happening in the industrial sector,” he said.

According to NICTA (formerly National ICT Australia), an institute that promotes information and communication technology research, for every litre of water taken from rivers, only half is used to irrigate crops.

“Challenges and wastage arise because of the imprecise nature of the distribution system. A farmer may have to request water from the management authority up to a week before it can be delivered to the farm. During that time, on-farm requirements may change; however, the water cannot be returned to storage and so is lost,” says a case study by it. The project aims to address this.