ICT Interventions to Improve the Performance of Canal Irrigation Sector in India.

In Indian, canal irrigation sector is one of the most important sources of water for the farmers which accounts to 21.7 percent of the total irrigated area of the country. According to the planning commission about 300000 crores rupees have been invested till 2011 into the infrastructure development. Even after such huge investments into the sector, the service provision is in complete disarray. Water distribution has been a major concern, with unequal distribution patterns in the command area. There is a huge communication gap between the irrigation department, Water User Associations and the farmers, about issues such as time of release of water to the quantity that will be made available to them. There are hardly any mechanisms in place to get feedback from the farmers on whether water is being delivered to them or not. This has led to a complete lack of accountability in the sector and has made farmers lose trust from the sector, and has forced farmers to look for irrigation from other private sources in turn has increased the cost of cultivation. The paper looks at how ICT can be used to build back the lost trust into the system by developing a farmer centric water governance system and use of crowd sourcing techniques to improve the communication and accountability of the irrigation department with the farmers.