Jayesh Talati

• Researcher at International Water Management Institute

Few large irrigation projects in India have been as elaborately planned as the Sardar- Sarovar Project (SSP), incorporating as it did the lessons of decades of irrigation project design and management. The project was to blaze a new trail in farmer-participatory irrigation project design and management with water user associations (WUAs) building t...

Gujarat, a rapidly industrializing state in western India, is notorious for groundwater over-exploitation. A perverse link between energy subsidies and groundwater overdraft has left the state with a bankrupt electricity utility and depleted aquifers, especially since the late 1980s. Moreover, this perverse relationship has meant that groundwater i...

Farm pond has been introduced as a supplementary source of irrigation in a coastal village of semi-arid region in Gujarat. Nevertheless, hardly a few framers have made provision to divert rainwater into farm ponds. Nearly half of the farm pond farmers have either deepened farm ponds or dugout wells inside farm ponds. Consequently, farm ponds are ac...

The system of rice intensification (SRI) has generated considerable debate globally, particularly with regard to its potential to raise rice yields. Proponents of SRI have reported that the average rice yield with SRI is double the current average yield and can be increased to the level of three to four times. Opponents say the reported high yields...

The Gujarat government is experimenting with different approaches to develop canal infrastructure and manage canal irrigation below tertiary (minor) canal in the Sardar Sarovar Project. Though the project is based on the principle of participatory irrigation management, hardly any water users' associations have taken over canal management below the...

Due to widespread problems of water resource depletion, pollution of freshwater bodies and a myriad of problems related to infrastructure and services, providing adequate quantities of safe drinking water is emerging as a great challenge in many parts of Gujarat. The authors in this paper analyse the physical, social and institutional dimensions of...