DEVELOPMENT AND COMPOSITION OF IRRIGATION IN INDIA: TEMPORAL TRENDS AND REGIONAL PATTERNS

India's irrigation sector is one of the largest in the world. The government alone has invested about Rs. 1556 billion (in current prices) in the irrigation sector as of 2001-2002. The irrigated area has increased from 20.9 million ha in 1950-1951 to 78.4 million ha in 2002-2003, an increase of almost four times. A large number of studies have analysed the impact of irrigation on various parameters. However, not many studies have analysed the direction of changes in the irrigated area across major sources and states. Therefore, an in-depth analysis on the trends and development of irrigation is essential to frame appropriate irrigation policies for the future. In this study, an attempt is made to analyse the past development of the irrigated area across states using time series data from 1950-1951 to 2002-2003. This study shows that the growth in irrigated area across the states and sources has decelerated substantially during the post-green revolution period (1980-1981 to 2002-2003) as compared to the green revolution period (1965-1966 to 1980-1981). The low-cost source of irrigation, namely tanks, has declined sharply since the mid-1960s, which may create livelihood problems for farmers relying on this source. Copyright (C) 2010 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.