ABSTRACT
Indian agriculture mainly depends upon vagaries of monsoon rains, which are unevenly distributed in space and time and not adequate to meet the moisture requirement of the crops for successful farming. India with only 2.4% of the world’s total area and 4% of the total available fresh water supports about 17% of the world’s population. The agricultural sector consumes over 80% of the available water in India for irrigation of crops and would continue to be the major water-consuming sector due to the intensification of agriculture [68, 77, 106]. Further, considering the fact that the population of the country is estimated to touch 1.4 billion by 2020
with the food requirement of 280 million-tons, the agricultural sector must grow by 4% and augment about 3-4 million-tons per year. Though the ultimate irrigation potential of the country has been assessed at 140 million-ha planned to be achieved by 2050, even after achieving the same, approximately half the cultivated land would still remain rain-fed, and therefore, water would continue to be the most critical resource limiting agricultural growth.
