Economic Evaluation of Bahirwadi Watershed in Ahmednagar District of Maharashtra – A Case Study for Replication in Potential Areas

The economic evaluation of Bahirwadi Watershed in Ahmednagar district of Maharashtra has been reported by taking 1995–96 as the base year and 2007–08 as the study year. The Watershed Project has been found to be economically viable since the BCR is more than unity with IRR as 42.70 per cent. The achievements in the watershed development activities have been to the extent of 88.50 per cent. A significant increase has been observed in the case of irrigated area during the period under study. It has mainly been due to completion of watershed development works. The productivity of major crop has been considerably increased over the base year. The per hectare total income accrued from both crop production and livestock activities has shown an increase of 101 per cent with an overall B:C ratio of 1.59. The increased irrigation facilities and number of milch animals have enhanced annual employment of male and female workers by 43.19 per cent and 51.73 per cent, respectively. The study has recommended that such watershed development programmes should be implemented on a wider scale in the country.