Modi’s ‘har khet ko pani’ vision and a reality check
Prime Minister Modi’s vision of “har khet ko pani” (water to every field), and “per drop, more crop” is affected by the inefficient agricultural practices followed in India, wrote Ashok Gulati and Gayathri Mohan in a paper titled, “Towards sustainable, productive and profitable agriculture: Cases of rice and sugarcane”.
Modi’s vision is to be achieved within a reasonable time frame, with its productivity and profitability is in question, says the report. In India, agriculture alone is consuming over three-fourths of the national fresh water resources. The inefficient agricultural practices combined with misdirected government policies pave way to India’s grave water crisis.
“The price-based subsidy existing for inputs at present must shift to income-directed policies, wherein the input subsidies/benefits must be directly transferred to the farmer’s account rather than getting reflected in the price of the particular input,” the paper said.
“More than 60 per cent of water available for agriculture use in the country is diverted towards irrigating two water guzzler crops, rice and sugarcane, having a share of just 24 percent in the gross cropped area, the report added.
“If Prime Minister’s vision of “har khet ko pani” (water to every field), and “per drop, more crop” is to be achieved within a reasonable time frame, one needs to look at the economics of agriculture (its productivity and profitability) with a different lens,” the paper also said.
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