Laid back irrigation targets: The department needs 22 more years for full coverage

Staff Reporter

GUWAHATI: The net sown area in Assam is around 27 lakh hectares, and only 11 lakh hectares have irrigation facilities. According to its own target, the Irrigation Department will need 22 years to bring the entire sown area in the state under irrigation coverage.

The state government is laying emphasis on multiple cropping. In the absence of irrigation facilities, how it will achieve this goal is an open question. The farmers of the state had to decry due to scanty rainfall this year in many places for not being able to sow paddy seeds. Irrigation facilities cover around 16 per cent of the around 38-lakh-hectare gross sown area in the state.

The state has 3,913 irrigation schemes, and 1,585 of them (40 per cent) had been non-functional as of December 2024. Most of the defunct irrigation schemes need minor repair that the department cannot afford to do due to, as it says, lack of funds.

One of the reasons behind irrigation schemes lying defunct in the state is the department being contractor-centric in the past. Without examining their feasibility, the department went on implementing irrigation schemes in a rampant manner that benefited only the contractors, not the farmers.

For the past four years, Irrigation Minister Ashok Singal has been assuring the state assembly of improving the irrigation scenario in the state, but nothing tangible is visible in the field. Towards the goal of increasing cropping intensity and rising crop yield, provisioning of irrigation is a prime necessity. However, the required thrust is lacking. Even the central government is also extending assistance for the development of irrigation in the state, especially in the installation of tube wells. The crux of the problem lies in the laid-back attitude of the department that has no prompt mechanisms to release funds for the repair of projects, restore power connections when disrupted, etc. Rampant installation of irrigation schemes without feasibility studies has left many irrigation projects lying defunct with the change of courses by rivers.

According to information given by the department during the Assembly session, the department brought 11 lakh hectares of land under irrigation coverage by 2024. It targets the irrigation coverage of 2.30 lakh hectares from 2024 to 2029, 3.06 lakh hectares from 2029 to 2034, 3.68 lakh hectares from 2034 to 2039, 4.25 lakh hectares from 2039 to 2044, and 2.68 lakh hectares from 2044 to 2047.

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