Though irrigation and crops come under agriculture ministry but campaign like Sahi-Fasal by National Water Mission (NWM) and several other out of box ideas being implemented tell the real story of a prudent initiative. Such enterprises are not only working for the good but also paying dividends.

Globally there is shortage of water and level of groundwater going below the dangerous level makes such initiatives even mandatory with India predominantly being an agrarian economy with top producers of wheat, rice, pulses, sugarcane and cotton in the world. This will make agriculture more lucrative as several such measures taken will reduce expenditure on agriculture produce. NWM launched Sahi-Fasal campaign on November 14, 2019.

How is this going to help is well explained by G Ashok Kumar, additional secretary, MJS and mission director, NWM, when he said that such steps are taken to nudge Indian agriculture to promote crops which use less water but are more efficiently; have high nutritional quality and are economically remunerative to farmers, and based on a holistic and integrated strategy.

Creating awareness among farmers on appropriate crops, micro-irrigation, soil moisture conversation etc; weaning them away from water intensive crops like paddy, sugarcane, etc to crops like corn, maize etc which require less water; effective pricing of inputs (water and electricity); protection of environment and assisting policy makers to improve procurement policies, creating appropriate storage facilities and markets etc are the key elements of ‘Sahi-Fasal’. All these initiative should have been the responsibility of agriculture ministry but coming out of water tight arrangement in policy matters is a good initiative.

In a country like India where agriculture is livelihood for about 58 per cent of its population, in the financial year 2017-2018, the gross value added by agriculture, forestry, and fishing is estimated at Rs 18.53 lakh crore. Around 51% of the agricultural area cultivating food grains is covered by irrigation and rest is dependent on rainfall. Cross country comparison of water use efficiency shows that India uses 2-3 times water to produce one unit of major food crops as compared to other major agricultural countries like China, Brazil and the US. The Economic Survey 2015-16 observed that India largely uses the technique of flood irrigation which results in huge wastage of water.