Inefficient use of power,water in paddy cultivation in Haryana

Subsidised and unmetered power supply to the farm sector in Haryana is leading to "inefficient" utilisation of groundwater and electricity on paddy cultivation, a study has found.
The study said an estimated amount of Rs 844 crore is being spent as power subsidy on excess consumption of electricity on the paddy crop in the state.
Besides, an estimated 7.23 million acre feet (MAF) of underground water was extracted to meet excess irrigation for paddy crop, which suggested that water was being utilised in an inefficient manner through electric tube wells, the study conducted by city-based the Centre for Research in Rural and Industrial Development (CRRID) said.

The evaluation study was conducted on the subject 'Optimisation of Agriculture Power Subsidy and Irrigation Water Intensity in Haryana', with main objective of assessing efficiency in water utilisation for source wise irrigation and assess implications of source wise irrigation for sustainable growth in agriculture and power sector.
To assess the efficiency in water utilisation for irrigation, the study compared the optimum number of times a crop is required to be irrigated with actual number of times.
The comparison helped in estimating wasteful consumption of irrigation water and electricity, if the pump is operated by electricity.

Among major findings, the study found average number of times of actual irrigations was significantly higher than optimum number of times of irrigations required in most of kharif crops particularly in case of irrigation through electric tube wells.

"Average actual number of irrigations (46) with electric tube wells in paddy cultivation is more than double as
against optimum number of irrigations (15-20) required. It clearly indicates towards over utilisation of ground water through electric tube wells," said the study.
"It may be due to perceptible proportion of electricity supply to agricultural pump sets is unmetered and is provided at highly subsidised rates in Haryana and consequently farmers are motivated to utilise groundwater as well as electricity inefficiently," the study pointed out.
Observing that there was an overexploitation of underground water through electric tube wells, the CRRID study also pointed out that there was "hardly any effort" from the state government to motivate farmers for efficient utilisation of electricity and ground water.

"Unmetered power supply promotes inefficiency in electricity consumption as well as utilisation of ground water. There is urgent need to ensure metered supply at consumer ends," it said.
It was observed that a majority of marginal and small farm households were interested in metered supply and even they were ready to pay for assured quality supply.
"But most of big farmers were not interested in paid supply. They were interested in existing system of subsidised power supply," said the study.
During field surveys, the deterioration of quality of soil was also observed, mainly on account of continuous excess use of chemical fertiliser pesticides and ground water for irrigations.

"47.24 per cent households reported bad quality of groundwater," said study, "More than 64 per cent sampled households reported decrease in ground water table in their fields."
The 62.46 per cent of sampled households reported increase in the problem of soil salinity in their areas particularly in the categories of electric tube wells and diesel pumps sets irrigations, as per study.
While trying to calculate amount of power subsidy on account of excess consumption of electricity, per acre cost of supply for excess consumption of power for paddy cultivation was worked out at Rs 4,984.72 after considering 11.69 HP of electric motor and average time taken to irrigate field.

As 16.94 lakh acres (53 per cent of total paddy area) of area irrigated through electric tube wells, the total amount of agricultural power subsidy for excess electricity consumption in the state as a whole was worked out to be Rs 844.41 crore (16.94 lakh acres X Rs 4,984.72).
Similarly, 7.23 MAF of total volume of water to meet excess irrigations for paddy crop was calculated after keeping in mind the average depth of irrigation for paddy cultivation required and per acre excess number of irrigations.
Among its recommendations, the study said significant amount being paid in terms of agricultural power subsidy on account of inefficient electricity consumption along with ground water extraction could be saved, if state government motivates households to utilise electricity and ground water in efficient water.

The government must ensure 100 per cent metering at consumer ends to estimate precisely actual electricity consumption and amount of subsidy and makes system transparent, it said.
It suggested that subsidised power supply should be targeted to marginal and small farmers and policy of direct benefit transfer may be explored in power subsidy which will require proper metering at consumer ends, it said.
In this study, the multi-stage random sampling technique was adopted to select the household. Six districts- Kurukshetra, Sonipat, Hisar, Palwal, Jhajjar and Mahendragarh were selected for study.
With total sample size of 960 households, researchers selected 24 villages consisting four villages from each selected district.

A draft report of the study has been submitted to the Haryana's department of economic and statistical analysis.