Maharashtra’s maximum irrigation potential

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Challenges faced by many countries in their struggle for economic and social developments are related to water (TAC, GWP 2000: 6) 2. India, too, is a varied country in terms of water availability and Maharashtra is a peculiar State of it.

Maharashtra has uneven distribution of water resources. A large area is, therefore, water deficit whereas a small part is bestowed with abundance of water. Maharashtra’s physiography has constraints over the creation of surface water (SW) potential for irrigation purpose. At present, the area under irrigation is 17.5 per cent out of total cultivable area 3. One study estimates that even after exploiting all feasible sites, maximum irrigation potential created may reach up to 34 percent. This suggests that groundwater is a dependable source in the State and offers a vast scope for its development and use for domestic, irrigation and drinking purposes.

Groundwater (GW), in its simple definition, is the water beneath earth's surface often between saturated soil and rock that supplies wells and springs. However, GW is a complex dynamic system and needs specialised efforts for its development and management. The physiography coupled with hard rock geology 4 of the State necessitated emergence of separate expertise organisation.

3.1 Emergence of GSDA

Besides peculiar geology and physiography, State faces constant threat of drought conditions. It has almost 1/3 area under chronic drought with a scanty annual rainfall of 500 mm and below. The situation gets aggravated with the presence of rugged topography and hard rock geology. In this scenario, when drinking water is a sector of high priority, only 15 per cent drinking water supply schemes are SW based. Therefore, drinking water scarcity remains...

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...ocal politicians wanted more powers and knowledge about GSDA Schemes that is to be taken in positive way”.

5 Aquifer is an underground bed or layer of permeable rock, sediment, or soil that yields water.

Certain targets were set for drilling BWs to mitigate the drinking water needs and officials in GSDA hierarchy monitored and supervised these works. Apparently,

people realised that the State will always take some necessary action to obviate emergencies on drinking water supply (Phansalkar, S. and Kher, V. 2006:79).

TAC, GWP (2000: 9) reports that water management is usually left to top-down institutions, the legitimacy and effectiveness of which lies questionable. The approach adopted by GSDA in this early phase was blue print oriented (merely as Service Provider). A typical structure of organisation during first phase is attempted in following figure 1.

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