What are the major challenges faced by Indian irrigation system in recent times? State the measures taken by the government for efficient irrigation management.

Challenges in recent times

Groundwater now waters more Indian plots than canals in many States, and the water table in Punjab, Haryana, western UP, Rajasthan and parts of the peninsula has been in long decline. Canal irrigation still loses a large share to seepage and theft before the tail-ender sees a wetting. Climate makes the monsoon burstier: a flood week, then a dry spell, which wrecks both reservoir scheduling and a rainfed sowing. Fragmented holdings make field channels expensive. Energy subsidies for pump-sets turn groundwater into a free common. Waterlogging and salinity persist in some command areas. Inter-State river disputes delay projects. Urban and industrial demand now competes with the field. Maintenance of minor irrigation tanks in the south and east has lagged, even though those tanks were climate buffers. The challenge is therefore too much pumping, too little last-mile, and a climate that no longer matches the old reservoir rule-curve.

• Peg: Tube-well India and canal India are two systems; both are stressed, for different reasons.
• Peg: The paddy–wheat MSP couple in the north-west is a groundwater story as much as a food story.

Measures for efficient management

PMKSY (Pradhan Mantri Krishi Sinchayee Yojana) is the umbrella: Har Khet Ko Pani for access, Per Drop More Crop for micro-irrigation, and watershed work. Atal Bhujal Yojana pays for community groundwater management in notified water-stressed blocks. Command Area Development and lining try to finish the last mile of old dams. Drip and sprinkler subsidies, often through State missions, cut flood irrigation on horticulture and sugarcane. Participatory Irrigation Management and Water User Associations are meant to take the outlet out of a purely departmental hand. Solar pumps (including KUSUM) cut diesel but can worsen extraction unless they are paired with feeder separation or a water budget. River-linking is a larger, contested structural bet; efficiency first is the cheaper claim. Crop diversification out of paddy in depleted blocks is the agricultural measure that irrigation engineering cannot skip.

• Peg: PMKSY plus Atal Bhujal is the Union’s efficiency pair: more crop per drop, and less reckless pumping.
• Peg: A solar pump without a water budget is a cleaner way to empty the aquifer.

Crop, power and federal water

Engineering fails if the crop and the tariff still reward waste. A paddy-wheat MSP couple on a falling water table cannot be cured only by a lined canal. Feeder separation, a water budget, and diversification are irrigation policy by other names. Inter-State river machinery (tribunals, the Inter-State River Water Disputes Act) still decides whether a dam’s water ever becomes a field’s water. Efficiency is therefore agronomy plus electricity plus federal bargaining, not only a drip-pipe tender.

• Peg: Cheap night power for pumps is an irrigation subsidy that can erase a micro-irrigation gain.
• Peg: A tribunal award without last-mile canals is a legal litre, not a wet field.