Determinants of Adopting and Accessing Benefits of Water Saving Technologies: A Study of Public Tube Wells with MI Syste
The state of Gujarat in western India falls mostly in arid and/or semi-arid regions, where half of the rural households depend on agriculture. The relatively low rainfall regions in the state receive rainfall for about 15–20 days during the monsoon with h
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Determinants of Adopting and Accessing Benefits of Water Saving Technologies: A Study of Public Tube Wells with MI Systems in North Gujarat Chandra Sekhar Bahinipati and P.K. Viswanathan
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Introduction
Water scarce regions in India are highly constrained by high cost of water extraction for agriculture and any other competing uses, including industry, urban water provision, etc. This is mainly due to two important factors: (i) naturally water scarce regions of India have extremely limited surface water resources; and, (ii) among these water-scarce regions, groundwater potential is very low in the hard rock areas of the southern and western India and aquifers are already over-exploited in most parts of alluvial north-western India (Kumar 2014). While the extent of groundwater extraction, for instance, has even far exceeded the net annual groundwater availability in some states of India, like Punjab, Haryana and Rajasthan, the stage of groundwater development (SGWD) is fast approaching the critical limits (SGWD > 65 %) in other states, such as Gujarat, Karnataka, Uttar Pradesh, etc. (Government of India, hereafter GoI 2014). The over exploitation and the resultant depletion of groundwater had caused lowering of water levels, desertification of agricultural lands, increase in cost of construction of wells/bore wells, installation of pumps [mostly, submersible]; and the already declined well yields increasing the cost per unit of water pumped (Kumar 2007). Gujarat is one of the water scarce regions with unique agro-climatic features, characterised mostly by arid and semi-arid areas that experience acute scarcity of water. Two major factors are identified to be responsible for this. First, the distribution and availability of freshwater across the agro-climatic regions is highly skewed, i.e., almost 70 % of the state’s fresh water resources are confined only to 30 % of its geographical area, mostly located in South Gujarat. Second, there is distinct variation in rainfall (rainy days) across regions of the state—from around 40–50 days in South Gujarat to a meager 10–15 days in the Kachchh C.S. Bahinipati (&) P.K. Viswanathan Gujarat Institute of Development Research (GIDR), Gota, Ahmedabad, India e-mail: [email protected] © Springer Science+Business Media Singapore 2016 P.K. Viswanathan et al. (eds.), Micro Irrigation Systems in India, India Studies in Business and Economics, DOI 10.1007/978-981-10-0348-6_8
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(IRMA/UNICE 2001; Kishore 2013). Further, around 95 % of it occurs during the monsoon season (Mehta 2013). In addition, high variations in temperature and rainfall are observed across the eight agro-climatic regions (Ray et al. 2009; Hiremath and Shiyani 2012; Mehta 2013). Hence, the state experiences frequent droughts (Mall et al. 2006; Kishore 2013). As per the Census 2011, almost half of the rural households of the state depend on agriculture, where intensive agricultural operations are distinctly influenced by the availability of rainwater and gr
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