Irrigation condition in Nepal

Until 1960 the yield of major food crops in Nepal was higher in comparison to other south Asian countries & once Nepal used to be rice exporter to India but now Nepal is net importer of rice, the staple food of Nepalese.

ADB/N & Government of Nepal (1982) reported that the per capita food production has decreased during the past years. Even more serious is that the overall yield per unit area has not increased & may even have declined during the past 20 years. According to Joshi (2002) one of the identified reasons for poor performance of agriculture in Nepal is inadequate provision of irrigation facility.

Upreti (1989) has summarized that rate of paddy production has increased with the increase of irrigation facility & that irrigation has brought higher intensity in cropping pattern.

According to Mr. Pageni (1987) due to the irrigation facilities crop production, cropping pattern & socioeconomic activities have increased, But there was also negative impact of irrigation that the period & pumping scheme lifted sand with water during the irrigation period & pumping tools had been adversely affected by sandy water. Due to this sandy soil, pumping scheme may not be durable for long time to supply water.

FAO (1998) reported that among modern technology, fertilizer, irrigation & others, irrigation is the most important factor influencing the rice production. It accounts about 28.8% share of total incremental rice production in Asia.

“For any irrigation system to perform satisfactorily the water distribution technology must match local condition of operation & management be within the capacity of beneficiary farmers to operate & maintain. The initiative to bring in farmers, as the major actor in irrigation management turnover of agency built irrigation system as well as in rehabilitation of a farmer built system.”  (Parajuli 1997)

According to APROSC (1982) based up on the study in Chitwan irrigation project (CIP) there is only a marginal improvement in agricultural production in the project area over that of neighboring area not receiving irrigation from project. In many cases less than half of the proposed command area has received water.