In its efforts to increase the irrigated area by efficiently distributing the available water in the Cauvery basin, The Cauvery Neeravari Nigama Limited (CNNL) is planning to undertake pilot projects on micro irrigation at four places.
The CNNL Managing Director Kapil Mohan said, “The Cauvery water disputes tribunal has permitted the state to irrigate up to 18.85 lakh acres of land in the Cauvery basin. Therefore, we have to judiciously use the available water to increase the irrigated area. In the conventional irrigation method, a lot of water is required to irrigate even a small piece of land. Therefore, we are planning to undertake pilot projects to introduce micro irrigation in four or five places in the Cauvery basin”.
Kapil further said that unless the farmers are willing to embrace micro irrigation, it would be difficult for the project to succeed. Therefore, the CNNL is holding discussions with the farmers in different villages of the basin to select the villages in which the project would be undertaken. The CNNL is also in the process of finalising the technology that should be adopted while undertaking the pilot project.
“If everything goes as planned we should implement the pilot project within this financial year. If the project yields the desired result, we will think of extending it to the other areas in the basin”, Kapil added.
According to the official sources, water would be supplied through micro sprinklers instead of canals in the micro irrigation system. Therefore, one can irrigate more than two acres of land through the system with the water that is used to irrigate one acre of land in the conventional canal irrigation system.