Influence of Irrigation Project on the Output of Food Crops: A Study of PIP

Abstract

Many major and minor irrigation projects have been implemented in India with the intention of enhancing the area under cultivation, besides increasing the productivity of existing lands.In response to the urgency in augmenting the production of paddy, a number of major, medium and minor irrigation projects have also been implemented in Kerala.The PIP, the focus of our study, was started as back as far in 1964 after the formation of the State on linguistic grounds, originally envisaged to accelerate the production of paddy in its rich catchment area by bringing additional land under cultivation and by enhancing the supply of water to existing cultivated areas. The PIP had expected that with its completion, the area under cultivation of paddy would be increased to 20400 hectares, and the paddy farmers would be able to have three paddy growing seasons viz. autumn (Virippu), winter (Mundakan), and summer (Puncha). Thus, since the thrust of the PIP was on augmenting the area under the paddy cultivation, it is worthwhile to deeply examine the influence that the area under cultivation has made on the yield of paddy. Therefore, the next move is to have a regression analysis for paddy in three catchment areas separately. The study analyzed the influence of PIP upon the yield of paddy by fitting a multiple regression model. The output value of paddy (yield of paddy time’s market price) has been taken as the only dependent variable given the reason that augmenting the yield of paddy is the prominent purpose for which PIP was implemented. The independent variable entered in the model is the area under the cultivation since the objective of PIP was to strengthen the supply of irrigated water in the catchment area, thereby encouraging the farmers to bring more land under cultivation of paddy. From the analysis of the impact of the PIP we know the impact of the PIP on the area available for cultivation of different crops, cropping patterns and land use pattern. However, the study does not claim that these changes have been brought about only because of the PIP, but other factors like change in the employment structure, vertical movement of education level and the impact of Gulf migration might have influenced the aforesaid changes which were not properly envisaged by the authorities of the PIP at the time of implementation.