Suggest measures to improve water storage and irrigation system to make its judicious use under depleting scenario.
Approach · directive: “suggest”
What it asks · Suggest supply-side measures (storage, recharge) and demand-side measures (efficient irrigation, cropping choices, pricing, institutions) for a shrinking water supply.
The question has 2 parts — answer each
- Suggest measures to improve water storage under a depleting scenario (supply side)
- Suggest measures to improve the irrigation system for judicious use of water (demand side)
Open with · With per-capita water availability falling and groundwater depleting, India must both store more of the monsoon and use each drop better.
Cover
- Storage: revive and desilt tanks, ponds and traditional structures; build check dams, farm ponds and percolation tanks; manage large dams for multiple uses.
- Recharge: rainwater harvesting, managed aquifer recharge and watershed treatment, with community-led groundwater management as under the Atal Bhujal Yojana.
- Efficient irrigation: drip and sprinkler systems (Per Drop More Crop under PMKSY), laser land levelling, and canal lining and modernisation.
- Finish pending projects and improve command-area works so that created capacity is actually used (AIBP under PMKSY).
- Cropping choices: move from water-intensive paddy and sugarcane in dry regions to millets, pulses and oilseeds, backed by MSP and procurement for them.
- Pricing and institutions: rational power tariffs and feeder separation, volumetric pricing of canal water, water user associations, and regulation of groundwater extraction.
- Reuse and technology: treated wastewater for irrigation, soil-moisture sensors, satellite advisories and village-level crop-water budgets.
Close with · More storage and recharge must go together with efficient use, right pricing and community management if irrigation is to remain sustainable.
Add value (verified)
- PMKSY, approved in July 2015, states its own aims: assured irrigation over more area, less wastage of water and better water use efficiency. Pradhan Mantri Krishi Sinchayee Yojana (PMKSY), backgrounder, PIB Research Unit (24 December 2021) ↗“It is being implemented to expand cultivated area with assured irrigation, reduce wastage of water and improve water use efficiency.”
Question: UPSC's CS (Main) 2020, GS Paper III — paper ↗. Approach: Minimalist IAS, checked 30 Sept 2026 (how we verify) — UPSC publishes no model answers. ·
Model answer · 244 words (UPSC limit 250) · Minimalist IAS
With per-capita water availability falling and groundwater depleting, India must both hold more of the monsoon where it falls and get more crop from every drop it stores.
Improving water storage
- Revive local storage: desilt and restore tanks, ponds and traditional structures; build check dams, farm ponds and percolation tanks under watershed programmes.
- Recharge aquifers: rainwater harvesting, managed aquifer recharge and watershed treatment, with community-led groundwater management as under the Atal Bhujal Yojana.
- Large storage: manage dams for multiple uses, desilt reservoirs and complete pending projects so that created capacity is actually used, as the AIBP component of PMKSY aims to.
- Reuse: treat urban wastewater and channel it to peri-urban irrigation, adding to supply without new abstraction.
Improving the irrigation system
- Efficient application: drip and sprinkler systems under Per Drop More Crop (PMKSY), laser land levelling, and canal lining and modernisation to cut seepage.
- Command-area works: field channels and on-farm development so that water released from dams reaches the tail end.
- Cropping choices: shift from water-intensive paddy and sugarcane in dry regions to millets, pulses and oilseeds, backed by MSP and procurement for them.
- Pricing and institutions: rational power tariffs and feeder separation, volumetric pricing of canal water, water user associations, and regulation of groundwater extraction.
- Technology: soil-moisture sensors, satellite advisories and village-level crop-water budgets so that irrigation follows need, not habit.
More storage and recharge must go with efficient use, right pricing and community management if irrigation is to survive a drier future.
Written by Minimalist IAS from facts checked at source (how we verify). UPSC publishes no model answers: compare your structure and coverage with this, then write your own.