Getting the irrigation statistics right

Rehabilitation of canal irrigation schemes in India: a qualitative analysis

“…However, lower values of performance do not necessarily indicate that the hydraulic performance is unsatisfactory and that the infrastructure, therefore, needs to be restored. It is because reliable figures on the cropped area are difficult to obtain, and water from the source which the scheme taps are being diverted to other uses (urban water supply, rural water supply, industrial water supply) (Kumar et al, 2022). Quoted areas are often the nominal commands and therefore show no variation between years.…”

“…The focus of irrigation development agencies changed to rehabilitation of existing old deteriorated projects rather than the development of new irrigation projects. The major international funding agencies like the World Bank, Asian Development Bank (ADB), etc., are now largely involved in financing programmes of rehabilitation of irrigation schemes (Kumar et al, 2022) rather than with new construction.…”