Calculation of additional area brought under protective irrigation in hectare
Answers
Explanation:
gives the Statewise review of outlay and expenditure during the Seventh Plan and during 1990- 91 and 1991-92. The average annual outlay on major and medium irrigation projects (including CAD) has risen from around Rs. 75 crores in the First and Second Plans to nearly Rs. 2,500 crores in the Seventh Plan. The corresponding addition to potential has, however, been between two to three million hectares per five year plan with the exception of Second Plan (1.05 m.ha.) and Fifth Plan (4.02 m.ha.). The average cost per hectare of potential created has, thus, risen steeply from around Rs. 1060 during the First Plan to over Rs. 42,700 in the Seventh. Among the factors that have reportedly contributed to such increase in real costs are the following: availability of comparatively better sites for construction in earlier Plans; inadequate preparatory surveys and investigations leading to substantial modifications in scope and design during construction; the tendency to start far too many projects than can be accommodated within the funds available for irrigation; extension of distribution system from 200 ha. block to 40 ha. block and further to to 5-8 ha. block at project cost; larger provision for measures to rehabilitate people affected as well as for preservation of environment and ecology; revision of hydrology following the Machchhu Dam disaster in 1979; and adoption of more sophisticated but expensive criteria for irrigation project planning in conformity with requirements of external aid agencies. The precise contribution of each of these factors to the observed increases in real costs is not clearly established. But inordinate delays in completing the projects are a well recognised fact.