Irrigation

Rationale: Uttar Pradesh has the largest net irrigated area in the country, with tube wells and groundwater playing the dominant role due to extensive fertile alluvial plains and high rural electrification coverage.

Rationale: Tank irrigation is predominant in Peninsular India (especially Tamil Nadu, Andhra Pradesh, and Karnataka) because the undulating hard rock terrain hinders canal excavation and wells cannot easily tap deep water tables.

Rationale: The Indira Gandhi Canal originates from the Harike Barrage, located just downstream of the confluence of the Sutlej and Beas rivers in Punjab.

Rationale: Northern India has vast, deep alluvial soils and perennial rivers fed by Himalayan snow, making perennial canals and tube wells much more viable and efficient than tanks.

Rationale: Drip (or trickle) irrigation delivers water drop by drop directly to the plant root zone, minimizing losses due to evaporation and deep percolation, yielding up to 90-95% efficiency.

Rationale: Drinking water supply is given the absolute highest priority in all national water policy frameworks in India, followed by irrigation, hydropower, and industrial uses.

Rationale: Kuhls are surface water channeling systems widely used in the mountainous terrain of Himachal Pradesh and Jammu & Kashmir to harness glacier-fed stream water.

Rationale: Ahar-Pynes are indigenous floodwater harvesting and agricultural irrigation structures uniquely prevalent in south Bihar, where the terrain slopes northward from Chota Nagpur hills.

Rationale: Punjab boasts the highest percentage of net irrigated area relative to its net sown area, largely due to extensive canal networks and widespread tube well irrigation.

Rationale: Launched in 1974, the CAD program was designed to optimize water use efficiency and bridge the persistent lag between the irrigation potential created by major/medium projects and its actual utilization.

Rationale: Nagarjuna Sagar is a major multipurpose dam and irrigation project constructed across the Krishna River on the border of Telangana and Andhra Pradesh.

Rationale: Groundwater (tube wells and wells) is currently the largest source of irrigation in India, accounting for over 60-65% of the total net irrigated area.

Rationale: Inundation canals do not possess regulating barrages or weirs; hence, they draw water from rivers only when the river swells during the monsoon flood season.

Rationale: The Sardar Sarovar Project on the Narmada River provides massive canal irrigation to water-scarce arid and semi-arid regions of northern and western Gujarat (Kutch and Saurashtra).

Rationale: Sprinkler irrigation is ideal for rolling, uneven topography where leveling the land for surface or flood irrigation would be expensive and cause soil erosion.

Rationale: Over-extraction of groundwater via tube wells in Punjab and Haryana has led to alarming drops in water tables and subsequent soil salinity issues.

Rationale: The Cauvery Delta (especially in Tamil Nadu, the Grand Anicut system) has historically possessed one of the oldest and most intensive canal irrigation systems in peninsular India.

Rationale: The Upper and Lower Ganga canals take off from the Ganga River at Haridwar and Narora respectively, serving vast agricultural tracts across western and central Uttar Pradesh.