A unique digital water distribution system for agricultural fields has been launched in Rajasthan’s Sriganganagar district to facilitate the supply of irrigation water on a predetermined schedule. The new system, evolved by the National Informatics Centre (NIC), Jaipur, will enable the farmers to know of the status of water reaching their fields and minimise the scope for human error often reported in the manual system.
Sriganganagar Collector Lok Bandhu, who inaugurated the online system, said on Tuesday that it would not only help allocate water from Gang Canal and Indira Gandhi Canal to all farmers in the district with transparency, but would also eliminate the problems faced in getting sufficient water to meet the requirement.
The farmers in the predominantly agricultural district were earlier complaining about not getting the canal water on time.
“With the process of ‘barabandi’ (fixed turn) becoming online, the information about irrigation schedule for the farms from the canal’s distributaries can be obtained from anywhere. The farmers will be able to get their irrigation turn slips through the dedicated portal after the water supply schedule being fixed,” Mr. Bandhu said.
Water Resources Department’s Chief Engineer Amarjeet Meharda said at the inauguration programme that the heads of water user associations would enter the information about farmers in their respective areas on the portal only once. After this, the farmers will automatically get their irrigation turn slips online.
NIC’s State Informatics Officer Jitendra Kumar Verma, who was instrumental in evolving the digital system, said the online ‘barabandi’, developed successfully in a short time, could be expanded and implemented as an equitable water distribution system for the benefit of farmers in other districts of the State as well.
