ABSTRACT
It is estimated that world population will grow from 7.0 billion in 2011 to 7.5 billion in 2020. While there is an ever-increasing demand for food, total agricultural land area on earth will not grow from current level of 5.0 billion hectares. In order to ensure food security and nutrition demand, productivity of land has to be increased in the rate of 40-50% in next 10 years by using appropriate technologies of which micro irrigation is very important. Water happens to be the far most crucial input in agriculture sector, which consumes about 90% of the total water resources. In India, including Punjab, the traditional practices of irrigation are still followed in which the overall efficiency is only 30-50%. World Water Council 2000 observed “the present water crisis is the result of the poor management of available water resources that has created an artificial gap between demand and supply of water.” Agriculture, being the major consumer of water is responsible to a great extent for the current mismanagement of water resources and consequently a sufferer also. But to meet the increasing food grains need of growing population from the same land area, the need of efficient utilization of all inputs to agriculture especially water is imperative [1-6].
