Irrigation for Very Small Farmers Appropriate Technology or Appropriate Organisation

Appropriate Technology or Appropriate Organisation?
P B Ghate Under the Integrated Rural Development Programme, envisaged in the Sixth Plan, small and marginal farmers are offered a subsidy of 25 per cent and 33 per cent respectively on the capital cost of a groundwater structure. However, in view of the small and uneconomic size of irrigated land held by such farmers, the benefits of the programme can accrue to them only if the technologies of raising groundwater resources can be shared. Equally important are appropriate organisational solutions to the many problems that will invariably rise in the implementation of such programmes.