EPC Shivnala Lift Irrigation Scheme Case Study



EPC Shivnala Lift Irrigation Scheme (A Part of Gosikhurd Project)
Problem Statement:- Major crop farmed is this area is rice, which requires immense amount of water for farming. The ground level of command is on high elevation thus canal water is not being distributed to far away areas. Because of this, farmers are only able to harvest maximum 1 to 2 crop per year possibly only in rainy season due tonon-availability of water & it is getting very difficult for farmers to sustain a livelihood with the single harvest paddy crop which does not generate much revenue.
Solution:- To solve the above crisis, a holistic view of the command area had to be taken to solve the water crisis while empowering the farmers to cultivate other co-dependent crops to maximize the land potential. We designed Shivnala Lift Irrigation Scheme on EPC Mode to Irrigate approximately3200 hectarearea up to 8ha Chak level,by lifting water from Ghoshikhurd Right Bank Canal (RBC) with the help of heavy-duty pumping machinery and distributed through rising mains & complex Micro Pipe Distribution Network of approx. 120 km in the complete command area. Further we designed the scheme such that water at the outlet has sufficient head to be further used in micro or drip irrigation without the need to increase the existing pumping infrastructure or changing any piping system in the upstream end. To ensure proper management of scheme post-commissioning (reason due to which most irrigation schemes fail) we even incorporated latest state-of-the-art SCADA system with GPS technology at each outlet such that irrigation scheduling can be done through any mobile device remotely without the need of any operator going physically to open the valves for irrigation.
Outcome:- Because of Shivnala Lift Irrigation Scheme, now the farmers are independent & they don’t have to wait forseasonal rains to grow any crop. Furthermore, through the efficient and equitable distribution of water farmers are able to get 3 to 4 crops a year &through our outreach programs and social engineering efforts farmers are also entering into farming of cash crops such as sunflower, soyabean, various spices such as turmeric, chilly and even starting to take up horticulture giving 3x returns per cropping season in the same land space. Furthermore incorporating SCADA into our scheme has helped the Government in timely collection of water charges from each water user association as complete data of water supplied to each chak is directly available on their authorized computers through SCADA software.