The southern part of Andhra Pradesh which comprises five districts is one of the most climate-vulnerable regions in India. Rainfall is low and unreliable, with frequent droughts. Irrigation is limited - there is a modest surface water source and groundwater resources have been over-exploited with many tube wells drilling regularly failing to strike water and/or tube wells are running dry. The farmers are vulnerable to wells running dry, resulting in considerable distress, and some have committed suicide.

Andhra Pradesh Micro Irrigation Project (APMIP) is a unique and first comprehensive project being implemented in a big way in the state. APMIP was launched in united Andhra Pradesh in the month of November 2003 with an objective of enhancing the crop productivity by improving the water use efficiency through micro irrigation techniques, improving the economic conditions of the farmers by conserving water, bringing additional area into cultivation with the available water resources, enhancing the crop productivity and production, quality, facilitating judicious usage of underground water, saving in power consumption and cost of cultivation. APMIP is being implemented with the assistance from Government of India, State Government and farmer contribution.

In view of the deficit rainfall, rain shadow regions, unpredictable rains and considerable depletion of ground water, the farming community realized the need to adopt the technologies of Micro Irrigation to achieve the concept of “More crop per Drop”. Government of Andhra Pradesh has set a goal to cover the entire potential area available in all the 13 districts of Andhra Pradesh under Micro Irrigation, within the next five years for sustainable agriculture.

The Chittoor district comes under varied agro - climatic and physical conditions. Mainly tanks, canals & tube wells have been utilizing for irrigation in the district. With the existing prolonged dry and drought prone conditions in the district, the cropping pattern has tremendously shifted from principle crops to horticulture crops and leading for remarkable decrease in net area sown. Once the district use to cultivate predominant crops like groundnut, sugar cane, paddy etc, has lost its important in the form of area and number of farmers.

After a grueling field work since 2003, the Andhra Pradesh Micro Irrigation Project (APMIP) has bagged the national records for being number one in involving 1.79 lakh farmers and number three in covering 1.9 lakh hectares under its purview in the drought-prone Chittoor district, latest by 2018-19.

In this circumstance emergence of micro-irrigation system has very much needed in drought prone area like Chittoor district of Andhra Pradesh with an aim of enhancing the crop productivity by improving the water use efficiency through micro irrigation systems for sustainable agriculture. The present study is based on both empirical observations and secondary information sources.

The present study has the following objectives.

The study was designed to assess profile characteristics of emerging micro irrigation technology for sustainable farming systems in drought prone Chittoor district of Andhra Pradesh which was purposively selected. The study area is predominantly depended on monsoon rains and no perennial rivers are found. Hence the farming system is depending on emerging micro irrigation technology. The cropping pattern and its dynamics, irrigation sources and rainfall, emerging of micro irrigation systems, adaptation, impact of micro irrigation and farmer’s opinion are taken into consideration for analysis. Both empirical observations and secondary data was collected the office of the Director APMIP. Analysis is made by using simple averages for drawing meaningful interpretations.

Chittoor district, the present study area lies in the southern most part of Andhra Pradesh state. It forms a part of the semi-arid as well as backward Rayalaseema region. Geographically, it is located between the 12º 37' and 14º 8' Northern latitudes and between the 78º 33' and 79º 55' Eastern longitudes.

Figure 1

In the present study the available region wise irrigation sources were narrated by comparing gross cropped area, dynamics in irrigated land and emerging of micro irrigation technology as sustainable source for agriculture in drought prone Rayalaseema region of Andhra Pradesh state with secondary data sources. A field investigation is also conducted to find out the position of micro irrigation implementation and analyzed field data to find out conclusions.

Chittoor district is basically depends on monsoon rains for its agricultural operations. The district has neither perennial nor major irrigation project. Only a few eastern mandals have irrigation sources under canals which ultimately depend on monsoon rains. Moreover the district lies in drought prone Rayalaseema Region which is identified as one of the drought prone region.

Table 1

S.No.	Year	Rainfall	Above/ Below Normal
	Normal	933.9
1.	2008-09	876.8	- 6.10
2.	2009-10	758.8	- 18.75
3.	2010-11	1090.5	+16.81
4.	2011-12	934.0	+ 0.01
5.	2012-13	936.1	+ 0.23
6.	2013-14	744.2	- 20.31
7.	2014-15	583.1	- 37.56
8.	2015-16	1176.8	+26.00
9.	2016-17	601.8	- 35.56
10.	2017-18	978.0	+ 4.72

Source: Panning Office, Chittoor

From the above table one can clearly observe that, rainfall from monsoons is very uncertain, uneven, unpredictable and discontinuous. It is very worst condition that district has received less rain fall than normal in five years out of ten years period. This resembles how bad the district continues in doldrums of monsoons. Further it is understood within five negative rainfall years two years namely 2014-15 and 2016-17 have received more than 35 per cent less rain fall which is indication for frequent drought phenomenon in the district.

table 2

Table 2

S.No	Year	Canals	Tanks	Tube Wells	Dug Wells	Other Sources	Gross irrigated Area	Net irrigated Area
1.	2008-09	320	24108	130033	33084	26	187571	147112
2.	2009-10	564	18535	145918	26205	0	191222	147631
3.	2010-11	9359	18126	151757	23855	78	203175	153228
4.	2011-12	5736	17557	147617	21778	109	192797	146197
5.	2012-13	3440	20391	143310	20613	97	187851	144887
6.	2013-14	4866	16011	149363	20253	87	190580	146687
7.	2014-15	2675	12610	136535	17550	81	169451	130316
8.	2015-16	3233	40738	155737	20663	81	220452	175452
9.	2016-17	1056	8437	160585	17933	0	188011	145492
10.	2017-18	1195	22126	170514	15088	58	208981	157026

Source: Panning office, Chittoor

In the study area, most of the agricultural operations have been depending on monsoon rains, if monsoon failure is happened and total agriculture would be in mess. The above table clearly indicating that, most of the irrigated cropped area in the district is on Tube well source (81.60%), followed by Tanks (10.59%), Surface wells (7.21%), Canals (0.57%) and other sources (0.3%) respectively. It point out that, the district has neither major rivers nor major irrigation projects and majority of the farmers directly depending on underground water resources through digging of tube wells by investing huge amount which is not affordable for majority farmers. There are notable incidents causing for farmers suicide wherever tube wells got failure when farmer tried for more than one tube well in continuation of searching for underground water resources. The problem associated with the tube well construction by the farmers is depleting of underground water table and in some areas farmers went up to even1600 feet depth which also resulted failures. The development and over-exploitation of groundwater resources in certain parts of the district have raised the concern and need for judicious and scientific resource management and conservation of water.

In observation of the existing status of water resources and ever increasing demands of water for meeting the requirements of the speedily growing population, agricultural requirements as well as the problems that are likely to arise in future, a holistic, well intended long-term strategy is needed for sustainable water resource management in drought prone areas. Presently decision support systems are being developed for providing the necessary inputs to the decision makers for water resource judicious utilization.

The Government of Andhra Pradesh considered scientific utilization of the scarce water resources to the growing needs of agricultural sector. As a result, the micro irrigation technology came into existence under the specialized organization kwon as Andhra Pradesh Micro Irrigation Project (APMIP) which is part and partial of Pradhana Mantri Krishi Sinchayee Yojana (PMKSY) in financial and technology aspects.

Micro irrigation technology has two types of implementation – drip and sprinkler techniques. Both of them save conveyance losses and improve water use efficiency by supplying water near the areas.

Initially, in the study area, micro irrigation technique use to adopt for plantation crops but currently the technique has been implementing even for principle crops like Paddy and Sugar cane. Moreover, emergence of micro irrigation technology brought a tremendous shift in cropping pattern. Previously the study area was known for principal crops like paddy, sugarcane and groundnut. But, over a period of time cropping pattern shifted to fruits, vegetable and other commercial crops.

Emergence of APMIP and Launching of PMKSY are boon to the agriculture sector in general and to the farmers of drought prone areas in particular. Under the APMIP, farmer is highly encouraged to convert their land under micro irrigation technique by providing high percentage of subsidy for being equipped micro irrigation facility. The following tables present detailed structure of subsidy pattern and financial implication.

Table 4

Sl. No.	Category of Farmers	Assistance GoI (%)	State Share			Total % of Subsidy (3+6)	Farmer Contribution (%)	Ceiling Limit
			Match-ing Share (%)	Addi-tional Share (%)	Total Share (%) (4+5)			Area in Acres	Subsidy amount in lakhs
1	2	3	4	5	6	7	8	9	10
1	Small and Marginal farmers of all categories	33	17	0	17	50	50	5
2	Other Farmers	27	18	5	23	50	50	5

Source: Compiled from the reports of PD office of the APMIP Chittoor

As stated in the above tables, subsidy is ranging from 100 per cent to 50 per cent in drip irrigation and maximum subsidy is being given to SC/ST farmers who come under marginal and small farmers. Government of India under PMKSY is providing subsidy ranging from 33 per cent to for small and marginal farmers to 27 per cent to the rest of farmers. However, the subsidy percent is same (50%) for all the farmers in sprinkler irrigation and no change in the share of government of India assistance.

As per PMKSY guidelines, beneficiaries who have already availed the subsidy for micro irrigation cannot avail further assistance for the same land for next 7 years. The farmers who have availed subsidy for Sprinkler Irrigation are eligible to avail balance eligible subsidy for Drip Irrigation within the ceiling limit i.e., Rs. 2.00 lakhs (–) subsidy already availed by SC and ST farmers under SF/MF, Small and Marginal other than SC/ST and medium farmers of Rayalaseema Districts and Rs.2.80 lakh (-) subsidy already availed by Medium farmers and Rs.4.00 lakhs (-) subsidy already availed by other farmers. The farmer who have availed subsidy for Drip irrigation are eligible to avail balance eligible subsidy for Sprinkler Irrigation in same land within the ceiling limit as stated above as per the field / crop requirement. The farmers who have availed subsidy for sprinkler irrigation are not eligible to avail subsidy again for sprinkler for the same land.