Revitalization of Rivers in India Draft Policy - Isha Guru Jaggi Vasudev

Revitalization of Rivers In India
Draft Policy Recommendation
With reference to the above table, the total length of the major rivers in India
is more than 15,000 km. Considering 1 km on either side of river, the area that
can be brought under plantation is around 30,00,000 ha. As most of the river
originates at hills, we consider around 20% (approx. 6,00,000 ha) of the total area
will be natural forests or hills. So, the area to be targeted for plantation is around
24,00,000 ha.
As previously mentioned, the overall irrigation efficiency in flood irrigation is
about 50% while the same is over 90% in drip irrigation. Accordingly, assuming
daily net crop requirement is 4 mm/day and considering irrigation efficiencies,
to satiate crop water requirement in Flood & Drip Irrigation method, we need to
apply about 8 & 4.4 mm/day in Flood & Drip method respectively. Meaning in Drip
irrigation there is saving of about 45% water. So in this example, for Net irrigation
under Flood & Drip, the irrigation water requirement is about 628, 1257, & 691
TMCft respectively (considering 180 days irrigation). Drip irrigation for proposed
area can save 565 TMCft water which can be further utilized to irrigate additional
22,00,000 ha area or can be made available for other commercial activities. Apart
from this, the adoption of Drip Irrigation will yield better farm produce in terms
of quality & quantity and hence returns will be very impressive as compared to
Annexures
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