The Ministry of Jal Shakti released the report on the 6th census on minor irrigation schemes.
About minor irrigation schemes
- So far, five censuses have been conducted with reference year 1986-87, 1993-94, 2000-01, 2006-07 and 2013-14 respectively.
- The census was conducted under the centrally sponsored scheme “Irrigation Census”.
- Irrigation schemes using either ground water or surface water and having a Culturable Command Area upto 2000 hectare individually are categorized as Minor Irrigation Schemes.
6th census-Key findings
- As per the 6th census report, 23.14 million minor irrigation (MI) schemes have been reported in the country, out of which 21.93 million (94.8%) are Ground Water (GW) and 1.21 million (5.2%) are Surface Water (SW) schemes.
- Uttar Pradesh possesses the largest number of MI schemes in the country followed by Maharashtra, Madhya Pradesh and Tamil Nadu.
- Leading States in GW schemes are Uttar Pradesh, Maharashtra, Madhya Pradesh, Tamil Nadu and Telangana.
- In SW schemes Maharashtra, Karnataka, Telangana, Odisha and Jharkhand have the highest share.
- GW schemes comprise dugwells, shallow tube wells, medium tube wells and deep tube wells. The SW schemes comprise surface flow and surface lift schemes.
- There has been increase of about 1.42 million in MI schemes during 6th MI census as compared to 5th Census.
- Dug-wells have highest share in minor irrigation (MI) schemes followed by shallow tube-wells, medium tube-wells and deep tube-wells.
- Maharashtra is the leading State in dug-wells, surface flow and surface lift schemes.
- Out of all MI schemes, 97.0% are ‘in use’, 2.1% are ‘temporarily not in use’ whereas 0.9% are ‘permanently not in use’.
- A majority of MI schemes (96.6%) are under private ownership.
- Out of all the individually owned schemes, 18.1% are owned by women.
