Concerns of Groundwater Depletion and Irrigation Efficiency in Punjab Agriculture: a Micro-Level Study

Agricultural Economics Research Review Vol. 21 July-December 2008 pp 191-199 Concerns of Groundwater Depletion and Irrigation Efficiency in Punjab Agriculture: A Micro-Level Study Anupama Jeevandasa, R.P. Singha and Ranjit Kumarb aDivision of Agricultural Economics, Indian Agricultural Research Institute, New Delhi - 110 012 bIndian Institute of Soil Science, Nabibagh, Berasia Road, Bhopal - 462 038 Abstract The present study, conducted during 2005-06, in two districts, viz. Amritsar and Faridkot of Punjab, (former having pre-dominantly tubewell-irrigated area and the latter having canal + tubewell irrigation facilities) has assessed the extent of water depletion and has measured irrigation efficiency at the farm level. Due to profitability and availability of water at shallow depths during 1970s, paddy and wheat (two of the high water-consuming crops) replaced other crops like maize, groundnut and pulses in the entire state. The area under these two crops increased from 7.22 per cent to 32.92 per cent for paddy and from 37.12 per cent to 43.53 per cent for wheat, from TE 1965 to TE 2005. Consequently, the problem of groundwater depletion has become severe in the Amritsar district, with a fall of 77cm/ annum in watertable. In the district of Faridkot, this fall has been of 33cm/annuum. The technical efficiency of irrigation on farms estimated through Data Envelopment Analysis, has indicated the mean irrigation efficiency of 57 per cent and 65 per cent in paddy production and 61 per cent and 68 per cent in wheat production, in tubewell-irrigated and canal+tubewell irrigated farms, respectively. It has clearly indicated that there is potential to improve irrigation efficiency by 39 per cent and 32 per cent, respectively in the sample farms. To sustain production system in the state, there is an urgent need to (i) do away with the rice-wheat cropping system in the regions where groundwater depletion is very severe, (ii) evolve regulation for use of groundwater and conjunctive use of surface water, and (iii) disseminate improved agronomic practices for increasing use-efficiency of water and other inputs. Introduction the country, the state produced about 21 per cent of wheat, 12 per cent of rice and 11 per cent of cotton The state of Punjab, in common parlance known of their respective national production in 2004-05. as ‘Food Bowl’ of the country, is the largest surplus But, this increase in agricultural production has been state in terms of food grains. It has a total at the cost of unsustainable use of resources like geographical area of 50.36 lakh hectares out of which land, water and chemical inputs, the externality of almost 83 per cent is under cultivation with cropping which is being faced now intensity of 189 per cent (Govt. of Punjab, 2005). The agriculture in the state is highly intensive in terms Presently, a major concern of the state is the of use of land, capital, energy, and all other agricultural rapid decline of water-table. About 77 per cent area inputs, including irrigation water. This is the reason of the state is facing the problem of falling water- that, with only 1.5 per cent of geographical area of table (Hira et al., 2004). To meet the present level of crop production, the demand for water far exceeds *Author for correspondence, Email: [email protected] its supply from different sources (Government of The paper has been extracted from Ph.D. thesis submitted Punjab, 2005). The excess demand is met through by the first author to P.G. School, IARI, New Delhi in 2007. over-exploitation of groundwater, due to which the 192 Agricultural Economics Research Review Vol.21 July-December 2008 groundwater table is successively going down. Methodology Therefore, an efficient use and management of agriculture resources, especially water, has become Nature of Irrigation Accessibility and absolutely necessary to sustain intensive agriculture Groundwater Depletion and income of farmers in the state by preserving the The accessibility of irrigation was analyzed based scarce natural resources. Keeping these facts in view, on the data collected from the farmers and its effect the study was undertaken in Punjab to measure the on cropping pattern was studied by tabular analysis. irrigation efficiency at the farm levels and also to The depletion of the groundwater resources was assess the extent of water depletion with time and analyzed based on the collected primary and its consequences. secondary data. Data Collection Technical Efficiency The three-stage stratified random sampling design The data envelopment analysis (computer) was used to collect the primary data from 150 sample program (DEAP) version 2.1 was used for the households of Punjab during the agricultural year 2005-06. Based on the irrigation systems, the districts analysis of technical efficiency of irrigation water of Amritsar (mainly tubewell irrigated) and Faridkod (Charnes et.al., 1978). DEA is a multi-factor (canal dominated) were selected. From each productivity analysis model for measuring the relative selected district, two blocks — Verka and Jandiala efficiencies of a homogenous set of decision-making Guru from Amritsar and Faridkot and Kotkapura from units (DMUs). Faridkot — were selected randomly. A cluster of Suppose data are available on K inputs and M three villages was randomly selected from the blocks. outputs in each of N firms or DMUs. Input and output Finally, 75 households from each cluster of 3 villages vectors are represented by xit and yit, respectively, were randomly selected from each block. Thus, out for the ith firm in tth time period. The data for all of total 150 sample households, 75 farms were firms may be denoted by K×NT input matrix, X and irrigated exclusively by tubewells in the district of M×NT output matrix, Y. The purpose of DEA is to Amritsar and the rest 75 farms from the district of construct a non-parametric envelopment frontier over Faridkot, which had both canal and tubewell irrigation. the data points such that all observed points lie on or All the selected farm households were further below the production frontier. The best way to classified into three farm-size groups, viz. small (up introduce DEA is via the ratio form. For each DMU, to 2 ha), medium (2-4 ha) and large (above 4 ha). a measure of the ratio of all outputs is obtained over The secondary data on crop production, irrigation all inputs, such as u′yi /v′xi where u is an M×1 vector aspects, land utilization pattern, etc. were compiled of output weights and v is a K×1 vector of input from various issues of Statistical Abstract of Punjab weights. To select the optimal weights, the and publications of Centre for Monitoring Indian mathematical programming problem is specified as: Economy (CMIE). The data on the groundwater max ( u′y /v′x ), depletion were collected from various published u,v i i ′ ′ sources of Central Ground Water Board (Northern st u yi/v xi ≤ 1, j= 1,2,……,N Region), namely different issues of Groundwater u,v 0. …(1) Statistics, Groundwater Yearbook, etc. Research ≥ bulletins published by the Department of Soils, Punjab This involves finding of values for u and v, such Agricultural University Ludhiana, were also used for that the efficiency measure of the i-th DMU is the study. In 1995, the district of Faridkot was sub- maximized, subject to the constraint that all efficiency divided and two districts, namely Moga and Muktsar; measures must be less than or equal to one. One hence data presented after the division of Faridkot problem with this particular ratio formulation is that includes those of Moga and Muktsar districts to it has an infinite number of solutions. To avoid this, maintain the symmetry of the study over the years. one can impose the constraint v′xi =1, which provides: Jeevandas et al. : Groundwater Depletion and Irrigation Efficiency in Punjab Agriculture 193 maxm,v ( µ′yi ), Table 1. Distribution of sample farms according to different irrigation systems (Number of farms) st ν′xi=1 Size of farm Tubewell Canal+Tubewell µ′y - ν′x 0, j= 1,2,……,N j j (Amritsar) (Faridkot) µ,ν 0, …(2) ≥ Small (up to 2 ha) 21 15 where, the notation change from µ and v to m and ν (1.28) (1.03) reflects the transformation. This form is known as Medium (2-4 ha) 23 16 the multiplier form of the linear programming problem. (2.53) (3.25) Using the duality in linear programming, one can Large (above 4 ha) 31 44 derive an equivalent envelopment form of this (7.02) (7.70) problem: Total/ Overall 75 75 (4.04) (5.42) minθ,λ θ , Note: Figures within the parentheses indicate average st - y +Yλ≥ 0, i operational holding (in ha) among the related farm- size groups. θ xi–Xλ ≥ 0, λ ≥ 0, …(3) the source of irrigation being tubewells in Amritsar θ λ where, is a scalar and is a N×1 vector of and canal and tubewell in Faridkot constants. This envelopment form involves fewer constraints than the multiplier form (K+M< N+1), Accessibility to Irrigation Water and hence is generally preferred. The value of θ will be the efficiency score for the i-th DMU. It will The farms in Amritsar were irrigated by tubewells — personal or hired. However, almost all the farmers satisfy θ ≤ 1, with a value of 1 indicating a point on the frontier and hence a technically efficient DMU, faced shortage of irrigation water during the crop according to Farrell (1957) definition. Note that the seasons. Sharing of water among farmers was also linear programming must be solved N-times, once very common.

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