POVERTY REDUCTION STRATEGY TN

e. Water, Land and Agriculture
Water, land and agriculture have strong linkages with poverty reduction. Most poor
particularly in the rural areas, rely heavily on natural resources-land, and water and
agriculture for their livelihood. Therefore, meeting MDGs will depend in large part as to
how the State manages its scare water resources and how it develops effective water
governance and improved water supply services. Policies relating to land redistribution
and transfers will also play a crucial role. The key issues and challenges relating to water,
land and agriculture may be highlighted as follows:
1. Tamil Nadu is a water scare state with per capita water availability of 900 cubic
meter (cm) as against the all India average of 2200 cm. The total water resource of
the state is 42.23 billion cm (surface water 24.1 bcm and groundwater 23.1 bcm)
and the total water demand already exceeds the availability and the deficiency is
307.8 thousand million cubic feet. Agriculture is the largest user (above 90 percent)
of water.
2. Most of the water canals are old and have poor efficiency due to seepage, silting in
the canals, and poor maintenance. Roughly 2 percent of revenue expenditure of the
State is spent on irrigation and only 10 percent of it is spent on maintenance works.
The maintenance expenditure is below the norm recommend by the Ministry of Water
Resources leading to rapid deterioration of surface irrigation.
3. The share of tank irrigation has declined due to siltation and encroachments in tank
beds, damaged sluices, weirs and bunds. Further, the rate of extraction of
groundwater exceeds recharge rate in many parts of the state.
4. There are severe water quality problems in several basins due to industrial pollution
and agricultural waste (fertilizer and pesticides). In recent years, the State has
passed the Ground Water Regulation and Management Act and also enacted an
important legislation to require rainwater harvesting system in all buildings to
recharge the groundwater and arresting sea water intrusion.
5. Nearly 66 percent of rural habitants are fully covered by rural water supply. Of 718
urban towns, only in 19 municipal towns the water supply is poor (less than 50 litre
per capita per day) and in 10 towns it is poor (less than 40 litre per capita per day).
It is estimated that a capital investment of Rs. 1932 crore is required to provide
access to safe drinking water to all households in the state.
6. Current land distribution and use in Tamil Nadu reflects centuries old policies of
settlement and cultivation. Due to land ceiling policy and land to tiller, very large
farms disappeared and the average farm size is 0.89 hhectares. About 97 percent
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