Developing old creeks for irrigation in South 24 Parganas

                  South 24 Paraganas  is the southernmost district of the West Bengal and occupies the southern part of the Bengal Delta. The district lies between 21°29’0” north and 22°33’45” north latitudes and between 88°3’45” east and 89°4’50” east longitudes. In spite of having proximity to Kolkata Metropolis, it is one of the backward districts of the state. It covers more than 50 % of the coastal areas of West Bengal).  Due to its low elevation a major portion of the district get submerged during high tides.

South 24 Paraganas is considered as the most problematic part of the coastal region of West Bengal in regard to agriculture activities. Rising sea level penetrating salt water in rivers flowing through Sundarban area posing a great threat to the livelihood of the local residents . As for ground water, it is mostly saline upto depth of 250 m and unsuitable for irrigation. However, there are some pockets of fresh water aquifers within a depth of 60-100 meter but they are small in numbers and might lead to saline water penetration just after few irrigation.

 Ambast et al. 1998 in their book, “The Sundarbans: A Disaster-Prone Eco-Region: Increasing Livelihood Security”, highlighted the importance of surface storage of excess rain water in dug out farm ponds up to a depth of 3 m over an area of 1/5^th of the farm. Moreover, surface stored rain water have low EC value  making it fit for irrigation. 

In the Sundarban area, the Hooghly river with its tributary systems leaves a number of meandering scars while on its way towards Bay of Bengal. These scars comprised of creeks, brackish water lakes, swamps etc. Out of these scars, the geomorphology of the creeks are considered to be ideal to surface store the excess rainwater for irrigation purpose.

With the objective to address issues with irrigation in the saline coastal zone, Project included areas from 24 South Paragana district to detect suitable sites with old creeks and develop them into Water Detention Structures(WDS). Development of 61 such Water Detention Structures has been undertaken with a command area 2727 Ha and bringing benefits to 7065 farm families. Total length of the WDS are 142 Km.

Distribution of the Schemes are as follows:

Sl No.	Name of Sub division	Name of Block	No. of WDS Schemes	Length of WDS Schemes (Km.)	No. of Schemes Completed & Handed Over
1	Baruipur	Baruipur,Jaynagar I, Jaynagar II ,Kultali	18	53.6	14
2	Canning	Canning I,Canning II, Gosaba,Basanti	41	86.38	22
3	Diamond Harbour	Magrahat II	1	1.5	1
4	Kakdwip	Sagar	1	0.6	1
	Total		61	142.08	38

 

Scheme distribution in the district

The Impact:

           Out of 61 Schemes undertaken, 38 schemes already has  been completed and handed over to the Water User Associations for the operation, maintenance and management of these schemes. Average baseline cropping intensity in the project area was 96.9 % which has increased to 194.3 % after the scheme implementation. South 24 Paraganas farmers basically prefers paddy which was main reason for low cropping intensity in the project areas before its interventions. Arrival of assured irrigation during dry season with solid extension service on agriculture and institutional strengthening has catapulted the cropping intensity to more than 100 % increase. The graph below represents the comparison of cultivated area( in Ha) in a WDS Scheme( Paruldaha) in Baruipur Block of the district before the arrival of WBADMIP scheme and after its arrival:

Besides increasing the cropping season, the project is also promoting horticulture plantation activities  covering  81 km around these water Detention structures involving members from 24 Water User Associations. Saplings of various economically viable tree species such as papaya, drumstick, karamcha, coconut etc has been planted in the wasteland around these surface structures to give the beneficiaries a sustainable income.
The project is also promoting successful technologies in fish culture in the district covering 28 ha of area and involving 950 beneficiary farmers so far. Fish farming is coming out to be one of the most lucrative activity in the project areas resulting 280 % increase in fish productivity.