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The word Irrigation comes from the Latin word moist or wet which means wetting of something or watering. The word irrigation is closely associated with agriculture. The cropping intensity of a field is dependent on the irrigation facility. The agriculture which is dependent on rainfall is called rainfed agriculture and the agriculture which has the impact of irrigation is called irrigated farming. Apart from agricultural activity irrigation also helps to grow vegetable cover on land, grow horticultural crops, reduce soil erosion, and increase biomass on the soil. It has also an indirect impact like its increased groundwater recharge. 

In 2019, India accounted for 48% of the irrigated land of total 140-million-hectare agricultural land. The rest of the land comes under rainfed. Major irrigation projects are discussed below:

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Major Irrigation projects in India

In India, the largest use of water is irrigation. In short form irrigation projects means some engineering structures which collect, convey, and deliver water to the agricultural lands to grow crops. Irrigation projects always vary from small to major. The major irrigation projects always depend on the Culturable Command Area which means CCA. Culturable Command Area means the area on which a crop is grown in a particular season or time. When the CCA is greater than 10,000 ha the project is called a major irrigation project. When the project will be major it will consist of huge water reservoirs, flow diversion structures, and large networks of canals for the entire region with some sun canals. 

  1. Bhakra Nangal: On the Sutlej River of Punjab and Himachal Pradesh this irrigation project was completed in the year 1963 with a CCA of 40,00,000 ha.
  2. Beas Project: On the Beas river of Punjab, Haryana, and Rajasthan this project was completed in the year 1974 with a CCA of 21,00,000 ha.
  3. Indira Gandhi Canal: On the Harike river of Punjab this was completed in 1965 with a CCA of 5,28,000 ha.
  4. Kosi Project: With a CCA of 8,48,000 ha on the Kosi River of Bihar and Nepal it was completed in 1954.
  5. Hirakud Project: It is on the Mahanadi River of Orissa state with a CCA of 10,00,000 ha.
  6. Tungabhadra Project: This project was completed in the year 1953 on the Tungabhadra-Krishna River of Andhra Pradesh and Karnataka with a CCA of 5,74,000 ha.
  7. Nagarjuna Sagar Project: It has been completed in the year of 1960 on the Krishna River of Andhra Pradesh with a CCA of 13,13,000 ha.
  8. Chambal Project: On the Chambal River of Rajasthan and Madhya Pradesh it has been completed in 1960 with a CCA of 5,15,000 ha.
  9. Damodar valley project: It has been completed in the year 1948 on the Damodar River of Jharkhand and West Bengal with a CCA of 8,23,700 ha.
  10. Gandak Project: In 1970 on the Gandak river of Bihar and Uttar Pradesh it has been implemented with a CCA of 16,51,700 ha.
  11. Kakrapara Project: It has been implemented on the Tapti River of Gujarat district with a CCA of 1,51,180 ha in 1954.
  12. Koyna project: This irrigation project has been implemented in the year 1964 on the Koyna-Krishna River of Maharashtra.
  13. Malprabha Project: It has been implemented in the year of 1972 on the Malprabha river of Karnataka state with a CCA of 2,18,191 ha.
  14. Mayurakshi Project: This project has been implemented in the year of 1956 on the Mayurakshi river of West Bengal with a CCA of 2,40,000 ha.
  15. Kangasabati Project: It has been implemented in the year 1956 on the river Kangasabati of West Bengal with a CCA of 3,48,477 ha.

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Conclusion

We can conclude that irrigation is the lifeline of agriculture not only in India but for the entire land. Different states still have problems related to irrigation due to the unavailability of groundwater and infrastructure for extracting that water. The most directly related component for irrigation is groundwater and to enhance the irrigation facility the government is not only looking at irrigation projects but also trying to give importance to watershed management projects by which all the government and non-government institutions are trying to arrest the rainwater and change the rainfed area to an irrigated land.