Constraints faced by farmers in canal command areas of upper Krishna project

The farmers in the command areas play a vital role in water management in the command areas. The system of water distribution, cropping pattern and quantity of water allocated depends on the farmers living in the region. Understanding such values of water is very important among stakeholders for efficient allocation of basin water resources. Both primary and secondary data were used for the study. The secondary data on area coverage of different crops grown in both the project command areas was obtained from CADA Bheemarayanagudi, Karnataka. Primary data was collected from 200 respondents from head and tail regions of Almatti Left Bank Canal (ALBC), Indi Branch Canal (IBC), Narayanpur Left Bank Canal (NLBC) and Narayanpur Right Bank Canal (NRBC). The data was analyzed using the Garrette ranking technique. It may be concluded that regular meetings should be organized among the farmers and the officials of irrigation department/CADA to study the problems faced by farmers and find possible solutions and adequate representation should be made to small and medium farmers from backward communities in the WUAs Thus there can be a better and equitable distribution of water if farmers are having appropriate training and capacity building.