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Paper on
Irrigation infrastructure: The view from Below
by Chitra Krishnan
abcks5@yahoo.co.in
The ideas that dominate policies on irrigation have gone
unchanged for more than 50 years. The main ones being,
- River water must
not go "waste" to the sea
- A river is to be
utilized to its limit by building dams and canals
Numbers on this score are easy to find. Pick a river basin
and the macro figures pour forth. (The Krishna basin, for example is said to
have a potential of 78.1 km3 out of which 58 km3 is
utilizable water. Current projects in place and being built use up 39.4 km3.
Needless to say projects that use up (58-39.4) km3 of Krishna's water
have to be envisaged).
Yet when it comes to performance on the ground we know issues
and numbers only vaguely. Yes, canals are inefficient, there's a lot of seepage
loss. We are unable to find the resources for annual maintenance of the canals,
so the system is continually deteriorating and so on.
After having built 5000 or so dams since independence -how
valid are the policy makers' assumptions? What is the performance of irrigation
projects on the ground? Is the policy maker getting enough feedback? Why, for
example do maintenance issues not take centre stage?
The view from below has not received enough attention, yet it
is full of tension and drama, as a quick online search on the Tungabhadra canals
showed. Consider the following newspaper articles
Leakage of water from Tungabhadra canal (The Indian
Express, August 7, 1997)
RAICHUR, August 5: The Tungabhadra canal, which supplies
water to four taluks in Karnataka's Raichur district, has developed leaks,
resulting in heavy seepage of water. All efforts are being made to plug the
cracks. The release of water into the canal may be temporarily suspended if the
efforts to prevent seepage are not successful.
Breach in Tungabhadra canal in Bellary taluk (The
Hindu Online Edition -July 20, 2003)
BELLARY July 19. A breach occurred at the 38.8 km. of the
low-level main canal on the right bank of the Tungabhadra Reservoir near
Pattanaseragu village in Bellary taluk on Saturday morning. Water gushed out and
eight to 10 metres of the bund was washed away in the first such incident in
this irrigation year. Water was released into the canal on July 16. When the
breach occurred, the flow was around 1,200 cusecs.
On receiving information of the breach, the Tungabhadra Board
authorities took steps to reduce the flow.
K.S. Muralidhar, Superintending Engineer, who arrived at the
spot, told presspersons that the repairs would be taken up immediately and
completed in about three days. "We will work round the clock and ensure that
water is released into the canal by Monday evening,'' he said. According to him,
around 10 metres of the bund on either side of the breach would be demolished
and rebuilt.
Owing to the delay in the onset of monsoon in the catchment
area in Shimoga District, the inflow into the reservoir was not much. As a
result, the release of water into the canal was delayed.
As the Tungabhadra Dam went dry last year, the canal, in
which water is usually released up to March-end, was closed early. The Rabi crop
was not grown on land irrigated by the water from the canal.
Farming is yet to be taken up in the irrigated tracts of
Hospet, Sirguppa, and Bellary taluks fed by the canal. Farmers have raised paddy
seedlings and are awaiting the release of water into the distributaries and
field channels to transplant them and sow other crops.
Farmers block highway seeking Tungabhadra canal repair
(The Hindu Online Edition -May 7, 2004)
RAICHUR, MAY 6. Traffic on the Raichur-Budgumpa State Highway
was disrupted on Thursday when activists of the Karnataka Rajya Raitha Sangha (KRRS)
blocked the road near Neermanvi village in Manvi taluk of Raichur district
demanding that the Government implement the proposal to strengthen the
Tungabhadra Left Bank Canal. The protestors had also blocked the road on
Wednesday to draw the attention of the Government to the problems faced by
farmers in the command area of the canal. They decided to continue their
agitation until the Government conceded their demand. They will block the road
at Manvi town on Friday.
On account of strike, many vehicles including buses were
stranded on the road for nearly two hours from 10.30 a.m. The policemen posted
at the spot only appealed to the public and the motorists to be patient till the
agitation was called off. The hunger strike being staged here by five activists
of the sangha entered the third day on Thursday. The condition of one of them is
said to have deteriorated.
Chamarasa Malipatil, general secretary of the sangha, who led
the agitation, told The Hindu that a team of engineers from the Water Resource
Department led by D. Subramanya, Chief Engineer of the Irrigation Central Zone
of Munirabad, visited the protestors in Raichur on Wednesday night and appealed
to them to withdraw their agitation. He said Mr. Subramanya had expressed the
Government's inability to float tenders immediately as demanded by the sangha
owing to technical problems in the Karnataka Niravari Nigam.
He said he was told by the Chief Engineer that the Government
had sanctioned Rs. 35 crore project for repairing the canal during its closure
and the work handed over to the nigam. But the nigam could not call for tenders
in the absence of approval of its board of directors. It was necessary to hold a
board meeting to clear the project, but it had not been possible to convene one
for technical reasons. However, the project would be implemented as soon as the
board approved it.
Mr. Malipatil said he was opposed to withdrawing the
agitation and told the Chief Engineer that the Government was only making
promises to pacify the protestors. He said the Chief Minister, S.M. Krishna, the
Secretary of the Water Resource Department, S.J. Chennabassappa, and the
Principal Secretary to the Government, A.T.M. Naik, had failed to keep their
promises on the matter. The sangha would continue the agitation, he added.
About 250 farmers, who cultivate land at the tail-end of the
canal, and activists of the district unit of the Janata Party led by K.
Sharanappa, President of the unit, staged a dharna in front of the office of the
No. 5 Canal Division at Sirwar, near here, in protest against the failure of the
Government to repair the canal during its closure.
They demanded that the Government call tenders immediately
and repair the canal before July-end to ensure uninterrupted supply of water up
to the tail-end of the canal for kharif sowing. They threatened to intensify
their agitation if the Government failed to concede their demand within five
days.
Tungabhadra canal work moving slow - The Hindu Online
Edition -May 28, 2007
Raichur: Improvement work in the Tungabhadra Left Bank Canal
(TLBC) is moving at a snail's pace following official "apathy" in releasing work
orders to bidders.
The Government had proposed to take up modernisation of the
canal during this summer by implementing the recommendations of an expert
committee headed by H.S. Chiniwal. It envisaged strengthening of the main canal
and its distributaries, including field channels, in the entire Tungabhadra
project with an investment of Rs. 250 crore. But the proposal was kept pending.
The Government, which provided about Rs. 20 crore in its
recent Budget, had asked the department concerned to go ahead with repair work
in the canal during this summer. Repair work should have begun in April as water
supply for summer crops was suspended in the last week of March. But the
department concerned delayed finalising of tenders and it took almost 50 days to
complete the process. It was able to release only work orders to the bidders
after May 20.
It is said that the tender process was delayed owing to
shortage of staff in the Irrigation Central Zone of Munirabad. Recently, the
Government filled up the post of chief engineer that was lying vacant for the
past three years. According to official sources, the department has taken up
strengthening of select stretches of the main canal, including repair to
aqueducts, culverts and distributaries, in all its five divisions in Gangavathi,
Sindhanur, Manvi, Sirwar and Yermarus. It asked the contractors to commence work
at the sites allotted to them immediately. They have been directed to complete
the repair work before July 15, to facilitate the release of water into the
canal for kharif sowing.
The sources said that only about 50 days were available to
the contractors to complete their task as against the estimated period of 60
days. Meanwhile, the department issued a notification on Friday asking the
contractors to complete their task within the deadline. Otherwise, the pending
work would be suspended before the third week of July, it said.
From Central Ground Water Board publications
- GHATAPRABHA CANAL
COMMAND AREA, KARNATAKA
The river Ghataprabha is one of the important tributaries of
Krishna River. The study area is bounded by the river Krishna in the north,
Maharashtra state in the West, the confluence of Krishna river and Malaparabha
river in the east and the South. The total area taken up for study is 10370
sq.km. The existing canal command area is served by Ghataprabha Left Bank Canal
(GLBC) and six branch canals. There are 90 distributaries, (majors and minors).
The canal system was completed in 1974-75. The net irrigated area is 161871 ha.
The canal system provides irrigation to parts of four taluks in Belgaum and
three talukas of Bijapur district. The proposed Right Bank Canal will irrigate
1,55,559 ha. covering part of six taluks in Belgaum and four taluks in Bijapur
district.
PROBLEMS IN THE AREA
In the project area, canal water is generally released in
June/July and water logging condition sets in by August which increase s
progressively over the area by November. The water logged area (<2m,bgl)
observed during the month of July, August and November 1993 are 143 sq.km, 344
sq.km and 580 sq.km respectively. The long term water levels (1981-92) studied
in the area indicates a general rise in water level within 2m. [This implies
around 9%, 21% and 36% of the irrigated area is waterlogged by July, Aug & Nov
respectively].
Though sketchy, anecdotal evidence, over the past decades
since inception, when gathered can give a very different picture from our static
image of dams and canals.
There is a need to collate the evidences and present it as a
cogent view from below, to make policy makers and others incorporate the ground
situation.
I propose to build this up in two phases. In the first phase,
based on my prior studies of some peninsular rivers an available public domain
information, a preliminary sketch will be made of maintenance needs of canals.
Based on feedback from the group the areas to focus upon will
be identified. In these areas more information will be collated and a cogent
viewpoint developed over a 10-month period, in collaboration with the group.