Abstract
Agriculture is the backbone of Indian economy. India has more number of villages and farming is the main occupation in villages. The artificial application of water to the agricultural lands is basically done through tanks, canals, sprinklers and drips. However tank irrigation is considered as one of the ancient irrigation system since the age of South Indian tanks are several centuries old and had started declining progressively. Due to inadequate rainfall, improper maintenance of tank components the tank irrigation system follows a declining trend, almost all the command area under any tank irrigation system depends on the wells located in the fields. This paper focused on how has the tank rehabilitation helps to improve agricultural production under the tank command and how it improves water security. The tank’s performance is assessed through some indicators from engineering aspect, agricultural aspect and financial aspect. Based on the selected engineering indicators the service delivery index for head reach, middle, tail end for the tank command has been calculated. The result shows that the service delivery index is high in head reach, moderate in middle and low in tail end. Agricultural production was increased after the tank rehabilitation and it improves water security. The tank rehabilitation has also increased the water level in the adjacent wells, but there is no direct contribution from the tank to tail end farmers due to siltation of field channels. The wells located in the fields sustaining agriculture in the tail end, however the middle and head reach farmers are practicing conjunctive use of tank and well water.
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