6 -Fold increase in drip irrigation coverage in Gujarat in 10 years

Gandhinagar

Gujarat government today shared official figures of drip irrigation scenario in Gujarat. Following are highlights of data shared by the government:

–Schemes for drip irrigation has been launched by Gujarat Green Revolution Company(GGRC).

–6,85,714 farmers are into drip or sprinkler supported farming over 11,05,921 ha land.

–Before year 2005 about 2 lakh ha land was covered by this method, but after establishment of GGRC, now 13 lakh ha land has been covered.

– Banaskantha district is number one with 2.12 ha coverage while Junagadh district is on number 2 with 1.13 lakh ha coverage.

– Out of total 11,05,921 ha land covered by drip and sprinkler irrigation, 5,31,269 is covered by drip irrigation with the strength of 3,17,274 farmers while 5,74,652 ha land has been covered by sprinkler with 3,68,440 farmers.

– Out of 11,05,921 ha coverage, 5.17 lakh ha is occupied by ground nut crop, 3.21 lakh ha covers cotton.

–Farmers are also involved in horticulture and vegetable crops farming using drip and sprinkler which covers 1.50 lakh ha. It includes crops like potato, babana, mango, papaiya, vegetables, lemon, chikoo etc. In non-horticulture segment, there are crops like ground nut, cotton, sugarcane, castor which covers total 9.55 lakh ha.

–After Banaskantha and Junagadh, other districts into major use of drip and sprikler are Rajkot(65339 ha), Bhavnagar( 58890 ha), Amreli (56774 ha), Kutch (51552 ha), Surendranagar( 46852 ha) and Vadodara(45554 ha).

–While Banaskantha is number one district in usage of drip/sprinkler irrigation, Mahisagar is on last position with only 1647 ha land coverage under drip/sprinkler. Anand district has 3547 ha land coverage.

– DeshGujarat