The promises of the Ken-Betwa river interlinking project lay in the folds of the future, but the past record of water management projects is sketchy at best.
At the heart of Indian agriculture’s perennial problems lies one commodity: water. Since irrigation infrastructure doesn’t exist in a large section of the crop-growing area, most Indian farmers are completely dependent on the monsoon rains. But rain patterns have started to change over the last decade or so with global warming. And it is not just about deficient or excessive rains. Even in the years when we have a normal monsoon, the gap between rainfall in different regions is so big that it is often counterproductive to agriculture. It, therefore, makes complete sense to ramp up the irrigation infrastructure.
It …
Karan Manral is a co-founder of organic farming ventures Green Essentials and New Farmer. After dabbling with technology media, communication and marketing, and some kitchen gardening simultaneously, he (and his partner Yogita Mehra) took the plunge into organic farming full time a decade ago and has since been trying to make growing food more accessible for novice urban farmers.
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