‘I’RRIGATION for ‘I’NDIA

- A Sustainable Approach

‘I’gnite Round of Ashwamedha ‘09

-Ashutosh Dikshit
-IIM SHILLONG
 Food for thought..

“With the current rate of consumption of

resources, we will need the capacity of 16 earths
to sustain mankind by 2108…”
 Living on the Edge

• Of India’s annual environmental damage of $9.7 billion, $7 billion was

due to air and water pollution

• Rampant industrial water pollution due to nearly 3 million small and

medium-size enterprises in the country

• Untreated and under-treated effluent cause severe ecological

degradation and water contamination

• <30% of population have access to safe drinking water

• Area under irrigation 8,26,25,000 hectares, though not uniformly

distributed (2006)

• Highly dependent on monsoons - displaying erratic patterns increasing

owing to climate change

Source: www.indiastat.com
 Back to the roots to give us the shoots
-Traditional methods

• Irrigation not at the cost of endangering the environment

• Adapting and Adopting wisdom over the ages

• Improvisation for making them highly replicable

• Making the initiative sustainable

 Exploring the North East for
the answer..

• Use of bamboo pipes to irrigate plantations across

Meghalaya

• Tapping the resource at the source

• In practice for over 200 years

• Naturally perfected:
– 20 liters per minute entering at source
– 20 drops per minute at site of the plant
 Harnessing Nature

• The principle of gravity governs

Bamboo pipe distribution

• Pipe positions of various sections

guide rate of flow

• Around 5 stages of distribution

• Collective maintenance from the

community
 Improvisations suggested

• Avoiding total run off into the water table

• Water Harvesting as a substitute feeder to bamboo
pipes
• Use of Bio degradable polymer sheets to create water
bodies in open areas
• Creation of similar water harvesting reserves in
individual farms as reserves
• The above mechanism can be replicated in other
terrains as well
– Simple mechanics (for artificial elevation) can combine
with bamboo distribution
Sustainability ‘of’ and ‘for’ the
initiative
• Raw Material used is natural and eco friendly
• Apportioning of labor and resources from the NREGA
scheme for pan India implementation
• Encouraging corporate houses to take up CSR
initiatives associated with Irrigation
• Govt. should Incentivize indigenous innovations
• Implementing the initiatives via the Darbars (in the
North East) and Panchayats (Rest of India)
• Demonstrate the returns a la the model in the
movie Swades to obtain stakeholders’ buy-in
 Participatory Approach

E S
m Government
e
p l
o f
Darbars/
w Corporate CSR
Panchayat R
e
r e
m Sustainable l
e Irrigation i
n a
t n
c
Foundation of Radical and Incremental Innovation e
ROI Calculation – Ballpark figures

• Lack of irrigation facilities forces farmers/family

members to travel long distances to collect water
• Cost of Bamboo – effectively negligible
• Time spent in travel could otherwise be
productively utilized
 Way Forward

• Localized innovation to be made replicable

• Traditional methods will continue to be of high

relevance

• Higher rates of adoption should be encouraged and

propagated by stakeholders

• The Green Revolution replication of the past should be

taken into the future
Thank You