{"id":37065,"date":"2023-09-03T05:49:42","date_gmt":"2023-09-03T00:19:42","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/?p=37065"},"modified":"2025-04-22T10:38:33","modified_gmt":"2025-04-22T05:08:33","slug":"minor-irrigation-census","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/minor-irrigation-census\/","title":{"rendered":"Minor Irrigation Census (MIC): Three-fourths of India\u2019s irrigation sources run on electricity"},"content":{"rendered":"<h3><strong>What\u2019s in Today\u2019s Article?<\/strong><\/h3>\n<ul>\n<li><strong>Why in News?<\/strong><\/li>\n<li><strong>What are the Minor Irrigation Schemes?<\/strong><\/li>\n<li><strong>About the Minor Irrigation Census (MIC)<\/strong><\/li>\n<li><strong>Findings of the Sixth MIC<\/strong><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<h2><strong>Why in News?<\/strong><\/h2>\n<ul>\n<li>The latest\/sixth edition of the Minor Irrigation Census (MIC) finds that electricity is the dominant source (3\/4th) of power to extract water, over diesel, windmills, and solar pumps.<\/li>\n<li>The MIC is a compendium of borewells, tubewells, and other privately owned irrigation sources by farmers.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<h2><strong>What are the Minor Irrigation Schemes?<\/strong><\/h2>\n<ul>\n<li><strong>Non-irrigated (rain-fed) agriculture depends entirely on rainfall<\/strong>, stored in the soil profile.<\/li>\n<li><strong>Irrigation provides a powerful management tool<\/strong> against the vagaries of rainfall (which is not uniform across the country) and makes it economically attractive &#8211;\n<ul>\n<li>To grow high yield seed varieties and<\/li>\n<li>To apply adequate plant nutrition as well as pest control and other inputs, thus giving room for a boost in yields.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<\/li>\n<li><strong>Minor Irrigation schemes<\/strong> contribute a major share in the growing irrigation across the country.\n<ul>\n<li>Irrigation schemes using either<strong> groundwater or surface water<\/strong> and having a <strong>Culturable Command Area up to 2000 hectares individually<\/strong> are categorized as Minor Irrigation Schemes.<\/li>\n<li><strong>Minor Irrigation plays an important role<\/strong> in the development of agriculture and livelihoods particularly in drought prone areas and areas outside command of Major and Medium projects.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<\/li>\n<li>The schemes have been categorised broadly into <strong>6 major types:<\/strong>\n<ul>\n<li>Dugwell (can draw water from a maximum depth of 15 metres),<\/li>\n<li>Shallow tubewell (capable of drawing water from up to 35 metres),<\/li>\n<li>Medium Tubewell (up to 70 metres),<\/li>\n<li>Deep tubewell (beyond 70 metres),<\/li>\n<li>Surface flow schemes and<\/li>\n<li>Surface lift schemes.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<h2><strong>About the Minor Irrigation Census (MIC):<\/strong><\/h2>\n<ul>\n<li><strong>The need<\/strong> for conducting the census of Minor Irrigation arose as it was felt that a database of these schemes <strong>will serve the planning, development and management needs<\/strong> of these schemes which contribute to agriculture in a big way.<\/li>\n<li><strong>The First Census of Minor Irrigation schemes<\/strong> was conducted with reference year 1986-87.<\/li>\n<li><strong>This is the Sixth MIC<\/strong>, which has been conducted with reference year 2017-18 in all States and UTs<strong> except Delhi, Daman &amp; Diu, Dadra and Nagar Haveli and Lakshadweep<\/strong>.\n<ul>\n<li>This means the MIC reports aren\u2019t a reflection of the present state of use.<\/li>\n<li>Because data collection requires collecting granular data down to the block level, it takes a few years to compile and make the data public.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<\/li>\n<li><strong>The First census of water bodies <\/strong>has also been taken up in convergence with the sixth MIC.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<h2><strong>Findings of the Sixth MIC:<\/strong><\/h2>\n<p><strong><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.s3.us-east-1.amazonaws.com\/media\/editor_images\/2023\/9\/3\/13\/30\/49\/64f43d31cecfb205a5fb64e3_OI.PNG\" \/><\/strong><\/p>\n<ul>\n<li><strong>The number of MI schemes:<\/strong>\n<ul>\n<li>Overall, <strong>23.14 million<\/strong> MI schemes were reported in the country from 695 districts, which shows an increase of about 1.42 million between the fifth and sixth editions.<\/li>\n<li>Most of the schemes<strong> (96.6%) were privately owned <\/strong>and small and marginal farmers, having less than two hectares of land, owned the majority of MI schemes.<\/li>\n<li>Out of all MI schemes, <strong>21.93 million (94.8%) were for groundwater (GW)<\/strong> and 1.21 million (5.2%) for surface-water (SW) extraction.<\/li>\n<li><strong>UP had the largest number <\/strong>of MI schemes in the country (17.2%) followed by Maharashtra (15.4%) and MP (9.9%).<\/li>\n<li><strong>Leading States in GW schemes<\/strong> are UP, Maharashtra, MP; whereas Maharashtra, Karnataka, Telangana, Odisha and Jharkhand have the <strong>highest share in SW schemes.<\/strong><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<\/li>\n<li><strong>The use of electricity:<\/strong> While it showed a quantum jump from powering only 56% of sources in 2011 to 70% in 2017, the latest report shows electricity as powering 76% of sources &#8211;<strong> a slower growth rate.<\/strong>\n<ul>\n<li>This electrification of groundwater withdrawal corresponds to a<strong> rise in the use of tube wells and borewells<\/strong> that are capable of extracting water at greater depths.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<\/li>\n<li><strong>Dominant source of groundwater:<\/strong>\n<ul>\n<li><strong>While \u2018dug-wells\u2019 or ponds<\/strong> remain the dominant source of groundwater, their number has declined from 87 lakh to 82 lakh between the 5th and 6th editions.<\/li>\n<li><strong>\u2018Shallow\u2019 tube wells\u00a0<\/strong>have <strong>declined <\/strong>from 59 lakh to 55 lakh.<\/li>\n<li><strong>However, \u2018medium-sized\u2019 wells grew <\/strong>from 31 lakh to 43 lakh and \u2018<strong>deep\u2019 wells rose <\/strong>from 26 lakh to 37 lakh.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<\/li>\n<li><strong>Causes for the increase of more powerful and deep-reaching tubewells:<\/strong>\n<ul>\n<li>While excessive groundwater withdrawal has been a matter of long-standing concern, the report doesn\u2019t discuss the causes for such increase.<\/li>\n<li><strong>State governments announce schemes<\/strong> where farmers are <strong>incentivised or get access to loans to buy such tubewells<\/strong>, could be an explanation.<\/li>\n<li>However, the lower growth in electrification is also likely to be a result of<strong> greater emphasis on energy efficient water extraction.<\/strong><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<hr \/>\n<h3><strong>\u00a0Q1) What exactly is Mission Kakatiya?<\/strong><\/h3>\n<p>Mission Kakatiya is a flagship program of the Telangana government that intends to revitalise water tanks and other water storage structures in order to support and help the state&#8217;s small and marginal farmers.<\/p>\n<p><strong>\u00a0<\/strong><\/p>\n<h3><strong>Q2) What is the Per Drop More Crop scheme?<\/strong><\/h3>\n<p>The Per Drop More Crop scheme was launched by the government of India in 2015-16 to increase water use efficiency at the farm level through Micro Irrigation technologies like drip and sprinkler irrigation systems.<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<hr \/>\n<p><strong>Source: <\/strong><a href=\"https:\/\/www.thehindu.com\/news\/national\/electricity-powers-three-fourth-of-farmers-irrigation-sources-census-report\/article67263965.ece\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\"><u>Three-fourths of India\u2019s irrigation sources run on electricity: study<\/u><\/a><u> | <\/u><a href=\"https:\/\/micensus.gov.in\/minor-irrigation-census#:~:text=The%20need%20for%20conducting%20the,with%20reference%20year%201986%2D87\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\"><u>MICENSUS<\/u><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>The Minor Irrigation Census (MIC) is a compendium of borewells, tubewells, and other privately owned irrigation sources by farmers<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":5,"featured_media":37066,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[18],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-37065","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-upsc-mains-current-affairs","8":"no-featured-image-padding"},"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/37065","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/5"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=37065"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/37065\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/37066"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=37065"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=37065"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=37065"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}