ICAR proven water management interventions need to be up-scaled: Dr. Trilochan Mohapatra

28^th December 2019, Bhubaneswar

Dr. Trilochan Mohapatra, Secretary (DARE) & Director General (ICAR) inaugurated Workshop on “Water management interventions for bridging the yield gap of major crops of India” organized by the ICAR-Indian Institute of Water Management, Bhubaneswar today.

Dr. Mohapatra appreciated the Institute’s efforts to address the issue of yield gap of the major crops of India at the national scale. He suggested further refinement of methodology for the assessment of potential yield of crops and comparison with the crop cutting data at specific locations of climatic buffer zones of India for enhancing the accuracy. The Director General emphasized on the need for up-scaling the adoption of proven water management interventions, such as, ICAR-Flexi Rubber Check Dams for watersheds, two stage rainwater harvesting techniques, climate resilient water management interventions, tank-cum-well system and real time automated drip fertigation system to reduce the yield gaps of major crops.

He accentuated on developing the mapping of water harvesting structures of different sizes created under the different government schemes including PMKSY/MGNREGS and developing plan to enhance their impact in agricultural sector and to suggest water management intervention supported crop diversification plan for the Government of Odisha.

The Director General also released the Publications of ICAR-IIWM on ICAR-IIWM News, Technical Bulletin of NICRA Project, Hindi Magazine “Krishi Jal” and Training Manual of Model Training Course during the occasion.

Earlier, Dr. S.K. Ambast, Director, ICAR-IIWM welcomed the Chief Guest and the delegates.

The ICAR-IIWM, Bhubaneswar and ICAR-Indian Institute of Farming Systems Research, Modipuram are the Indian collaborators of the project.

Around 40 participants including delegates from ICAR-CIFA, ICAR-CIWA, ICAR-IIHR-CHES and ICAR-CTCRI participated in the Workshop.

(Source: ICAR-Indian Institute of Water Management, Bhubaneswar)