$1 bn spent on Rajasthan water projects, just 20% of Barmer is irrigated

Just 20% of Barmer's farms are irrigated, primarily with tube-wells (63.73%), and some with open wells and canals

It was March 2019, and Pabusari village in Barmer district in western Rajasthan was parched. Another year of bad monsoon--the fifth--had failed 36-year-old farmer Hariram Meghwal, leaving him with no option but to migrate in search of work to ensure his family's survival.

Meghwal had spent Rs 30,000 on sowing bajra (pearl millet), guar (cluster beans) and moong (green gram) on his six-hectare farm, but drought over successive years had laid it to waste.

Pabusari, about 90 km from the district headquarters, was among the 2,741 villages of Barmer’s total 2,775 to be declared ‘drought-hit’ by the Barmer district administration in 2018,