Farm Ponds – Burning Issues – Free PDF Download

Context

• Prime Minister Narendra Modi talked about the need to implement innovative water management measures, stressing particularly the importance of rainwater harvesting both at the household and community levels.
• One intervention that has been tried out in various States, and needs to be taken up on a bigger scale, is the construction of farm ponds.

 Issue

• With an increased variability of monsoons and rapidly depleting groundwater tables, large parts of India are reeling under water stress.
• A number of peninsular regions like Bundelkhand, Vidarbha and Marathwada have been facing recurring drought-like situations.

Benefits

• Cost-effective structures
• Enhances water control
• These ponds are a financially viable plan
• However, this is possible only if they act as rainwater harvesting structures and not as intermediate storage points

Recent Reports

• Farm ponds aid in superior water
• Some of them functioned exclusively as recharge points
• They also helped in providing supplemental irrigation
• The yield of paddy stabilised

Capacity

• Farm ponds can retain water for 8-10 months of the year.
• Cropping intensity and crop diversification
• Increase in area used to cultivate vegetables and other commercial crops.

 Other provisions

• Maharashtra government is promoting farm ponds
• However, most of them are being constructed without inlet and outlet provisions
• They cannot arrest the excess
• Further, farmers line them at the bottom with plastic
• Such farm ponds have an adverse impact on the water tables

Way ahead

• Intensify competition for extraction of groundwater from the aquifer.
• In such cases, farmers fill up their farm ponds first
• This can obstruct the circulation of water.
• During canal rotation, the aquifer will get recharged
• This return flow benefits all
• But if canals fill up the farm ponds first, it restricts their benefits only to the pond owners.
• Overall, farm ponds can act as effective harvesting structures and also yield healthy financial returns.
• But if they are promoted merely for onfarm storage of groundwater and canal water, they could accelerate, rather than reduce, the water crisis in the countryside

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