Pioneers in Conjunctive Use of Surface and Ground Water Bhalage Piyush Pradeep1 1Department of Commerce, Dr. BAM University, Aurangabad, Maharashtra Online Published on 07 February, 2022. Abstract Natural water resources are potentially useful for agricultural industrial, household, recreational and environmental activities. Monsoon rains are major natural resources in India. It has shorter duration and uneven distribution. Therefore tradition to harvest and store the rain water in the form of surface storages such as dams and reservoirs has been developed in India. In addition location specific techniques for ground water recharge are also developed in India. The stored water in the reservoir is also called as surface water; major part of this is used for irrigation. In addition to surface water, ground water is also utilised for irrigation. Open dug wells, bore wells are used to lift the ground water for irrigation. Both the resources are valuable and supportive to each other for increasing agricultural productivity. With the pass of time these resources are becoming more and more scare, therefore conjunctive use of them is gaining more importance. Due to fast growing population and economic development, the demand of water, food and fiber is increasing. To meet the increasing demand, more and more water from the surface water resources needs to be diverted for irrigation to grow more foods and fiber, however it is practically hard to attain. The demand for non-irrigation use is progressively increasing, imparting more stress on water resources. Creeping effects of climate change are aggravating the water stress situations. On this background, efficient utilization of the available water resources is utmost important. A case study of a water user association (WUA) in the command of a Indore minor irrigation project situated in Nasik District of Maharashtra state have proven that conjunctive use of surface and ground water with efficient use has a capacity to alter the water scare situations. Simple, efficient, economical, equitable, transparent and same time water supplies to each member are the unique and excellent features of the scheme under study. Due to implementation of this scheme, area of irrigation has been multiplied in several times, as a result every working hands are getting job in the village itself. It also has a positive impact to substantially reduce the migration of youth (human resource) towards city in search of work. In this paper the details of the technique used and its impact on their social, economic, and environmental well-being are discussed in detail. Top |