Water is one of the most important inputs for
agricultural production. But due to wide variation in its spatial and temporal
availability, it is not always possible to apply it to the crop when it is
essentially required. Sometimes, in spite of sufficient water availability inthe reservoir, water is not released, distributed and allocated timely,
adequately and equitably among the farmers due to many technical, hydraulic,
socio-economic, institutional, financial and managerial problems as mentioned
by Upadhyaya and discussed in detail by Upadhyaya. This leads to wide gap
between water supply and water requirement in the canal command, resulting in
either water logging or agricultural drought.
Both the situations are detrimental and adversely affect
the crop yield. This clearly indicates that there is sufficient scope to made
water available to farmers in adequate quantity at right time, if canal
managers properly plan, manage and release water as per crop water requirement.
Upadhyaya has mentioned number of water management technologies in agricultureto improve water productivity. In this paper, optimal and equitable releases of
water in the distributaries of Patna Main Canal under various scenarios of
water availability by employing OPTALL model have been presented and gap
between actual and optimal releases has been assessed for conjunctive use
planning.
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