WATERLOGGING CONTROL BY

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WATERLOGGING CONTROL BY SUBSURFACE AND
BIODRAINAGE
H.S. Chauhan Former Professor, Dean
Technology, Dean PG Studies G.B.Pant
Univ. of Agri. Tech., Pantnagar, Distt. U.S.
Nagar, Uttaranchal
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Abstract

• The basic reason for agricultural lands being
  affected by water logging and salinity is
  inadequacy of natural drainage system to handle
  the water reaching the land either by natural or
  artificial means.
• When such a situation occurs artificial drainage
  system has to be resorted to.
• The earliest drainage method consisted of
  drainage by open trenches.
• Then came successively drains from stones, turf
  drains, plug drains, brushwood drains and early
  brick drains which were used for quite some time.
  
• After brick drains U tiles or horse shoes drains
  were used.

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• In the last came cylindrical clay tiles which
  also have been replaced finally by PVC perforated
  pipes.
• It is important to understand the causes and the
  necessity of the problem of drainage before
  discussing the methods of their reclamation.
• Generally the different issues of drainage are
  visualised as separate issues occurring
  independently, and therefore requiring
  independent consideration.
• In fact water logging is the main cause which
  results in the problems of drainage and salinity
  affecting agricultural productivity.
• The objective of this paper is discussing the
  nature of water logging its extent in the command
  areas and the country and types of drainage,
  horizontal, vertical and Bio drainage etc and the
  policy issues for proper management of water
  logged lands.

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• INTRODUCTION
• The basic reason for agricultural lands being
  affected by water logging and salinity is
  inadequacy of natural drainage system to handle
  the water reaching the land either  by  natural
  or artificial means.
• In the earlier stages drainage was used for
  removal of river overflows after the flood
  season.
• Later on, during construction of highways
  drainage works were used to clear ponding of rain
  and flood waters.
• In Greek civilization some areas were reclaimed
  by a system of ditches.
• The drainage of humid and semi humid areas
  started in tenth century and extended to
  different parts of Europe in sixteenth and
  seventeenth centuries.

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• The reclamation then meant only drainage of large
  swamps around the lakes or low lying areas near
  the sea.
• In Netherlands the reclamation of land from sea
  was done by polders.
• In some countries drainage was applied in humid
  lands for production of upland crops, whereas in
  others drainage was applied for lowering of water
  tables as well as reclamation of salt affected
  lands for growing agricultural crops.

• The earliest drainage method consisted of
  drainage by open trenches.
• Then came successively drains from stones, turf
  drains, plug drains, brush wood drains and early
  brick drains which were used for quite some time.
  
• After brick drains U tiles or horse shoes drains
  were used.
• In the last came cylindrical clay tiles which
  also have been replaced finally by PVC perforated
  pipes.

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• It is important to understand the causes and the
  necessity of the problem of drainage before
  discussing the methods of their reclamation.
• Generally the issues of water logging drainage
  and salinity are visualised as separate issues
  occurring independently, and therefore requiring
  independent consideration.
• However the three problems are intimately
  connected. In fact water logging is the main
  cause which results in the problems of drainage
  and salinity affecting agricultural
  productivity.
• There are various alternative approaches to
  drainage suiting different crop and soil
  hydrological conditions.
• The objective of this paper is discussing the
  nature of water logging its extent in the command
  areas and the country and various alternative
  approaches to drainage ,horizontal vertical as
  well as Bio- drainage including the policy
  issues for proper management of water logged
  lands.

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• WATERLOGGING
• Water logging by its name gives the idea of water
  standing on the agricultural field.
• There has been no uniform norms or definition of
  the term water logging and each state monitors
  according to its own norms.
• Considering this Central Board of Irrigation and
  Power has given the definition of Water logging
  as below
• An area is said to be waterlogged when the water
  table rises to an extent that soil pores in the
  root zone of a crop become saturated resulting in
  restriction of normal circulation of air, decline
  in level of oxygen and increase in the level of
  carbon-di-oxide.
• The water table which is considered harmful will
  depend on the type of crop, type of soil and the
  quantity of water.
• The actual depth of water table when it starts
  affecting the yield of the crops adversely may
  vary over a wide range from zero for rice to
  about 1.5 m for other crops.

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Table 1. Norms of Water logging as Suggested by
CBIP
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Table 2 Waterlogged and User Areas in
Different States
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Table 3. Waterlogged and Usar Areas in Different
Irrigation Commands (Areas in 100 hectares)
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APPLICATION OF DRAINAGE

• Drainage is the only appropriate approach to
  improve water logging of agricultural lands.
• Different Connotation of Drainage
• Geographers call it pattern of watercourses in
  hilly areas.
• Pedologists term it as poorly drained soils
  according to permeability.
• In Peru Engineers mean reconstruction of natural
  waterways.
• In Canada they used to mean reclamation of
  marshes.
• In Holland they mean installation of tile or
  pipes.
• In the USA, they used to mean drainage of marshes
  and salt affected irrigated lands.

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Table 4 Countries with Largest Drained Area
(ICID, 2002)
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India

• Water logging and salinity was observed in Karnal
  in 1855.
• Systematic efforts on Drainage were made and
  successfully demonstrated in Gohana and Sampla at
  Central Soil Salinity Institute Karnal around
  1983- 1984.
• Later under ICAR projects several regional
  centers for research on drainage were established
  in different states.
• CSSRI pilot projects under Indo-Dutch schemes on
  subsurface drainage were established in different
  soil hydrological regions in different states,
  which were quite successful and were picked up
  well in few states.
• No systematic data of total subsurface drainage
  in the country is available.
• However under RAJAD (Rajasthan Drainage Project)
  systematic subsurface drains were laid in about
  13000 hectares by fully mechanized equipments.
• In Haryana state also about 3000 hectares of
  subsurface drains have been laid by mechanized
  equipments.

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Some World Water Forum Views

• According to Schultz etal (2004) irrigation
  covers 270 million ha or 18 of worlds arable
  land.
• Irrigation is responsible for 40 of crop output
  and employs about 30 of rural population.
• It uses about 70 of water from global rivers.
  About 60 of such waters are used consumptively.
• Drainage of rain fed crops covers about
  130million ha i.e. about 9 of worlds arable
  lands.
• In about 60 million ha of irrigated lands there
  is a drainage system existing.
• From about 130 million ha rain fed lands about
  15 of the crop output is obtained.
• In the second world water forum held in March
  2000 at Hague the paper resented on long term
  vision preparation on water, life environment in
  the 21st century with its vision on water for
  food and rural development indicated a required
  duplication of food production in coming 25
  years.

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• It was also analyzed and calculated that the
  largest agricultural area was without any water
  management system.
• About 90 of the increase in production had to
  come from the existing cultivated lands and only
  19 from new land reclamation.
• In the rain fed areas without water management
  water harvesting and watershed management may
  improve livelihood of poor farm families but much
  increase in production is not expected.
• Installation of irrigation and drainage systems
  in areas without a system or improvement/moderniza
  tion of existing irrigation and drainage system.
• There has to be a shift of contribution to total
  food production 30 for the areas without a water
  management system, 50 for the areas having a
  irrigation system and 20 in rain fed areas with
  a drainage system.

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• TYPES OF DRAINAGE
• (i) SURFACE DRAINAGE
• Surface drainage is the removal of excess water
  from the land surface to create more favourable
  conditions for plant growth.
• The water may be from excess precipitation water
  applied in irrigation losses from conveyance
  channels and storage systems and/or water that
  has seeped from ground water in upper reaches.
• It is the drainage of excess water from the land
  surface at a rate which will prevent long periods
  of ponding without excessive erosion so that
  agricultural crops would have a favourable
  moisture condition.
• These can be broadly described as
• On-farm field drainage system
• Intermediate drains (collector or carrier drains)
• Main drains ( or sub main drains)
• Seepage drains

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• (ii) SUBSURFACE DRAINAGE
• Subsurface drainage may be defined as the removal
  or control of ground water and removal or control
  of salts using water as vehicle.
• The source of water may be percolation from
  precipitation or irrigation leakage from canals,
  drains or surface water bodies at higher
  elevation.
• Any drain or well designed to control or lower
  the ground water is considered subsurface
  drainage.
• They may be broadly classified in two categories
  as
• (a) Horizontal Drains, and (b) Vertical
  Drains
• (a) Horizontal drains
• It is accomplished by buried pipes or pipe less
  (mole) drains and also by deep open ditches.
• Pipe drains They consist of a system of pipes
  made of baked clay concrete or perforated plastic
  pipe or any other materials. The excess water
  enters in lateral lines through the joints
  between two tiles or perforations and flows
  towards main drains.

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• Mole drains
• These are cylindrical channels artificially
  produced in the subsoil by a mole plough.
• In principle and hydraulics they are similar to
  pipe drain except that they are not lined with
  tiles or plastic pipes.
• Moling is considered as a temporary method of
  drainage as moles deteriorate and have to be
  reconstructed for effectiveness.
• Deep open ditches
• If closely spaced, they also work similar to pipe
  drains or mole drains for lowering water table
  and removing excess water.
• However, they are difficult to maintain and
  provide lot of inconvenience for crossing of men,
  animals and farm equipments.

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Objectives of Horizontal Drainage

• The main objectives of horizontal drains are
• (i) In humid region to accomplish aeration in
  plant root zone to grow upland crops like maize,
  soybean etc and to provide improvement in soil
  moisture conditions for operation of tillage,
  planting and harvesting and thus to increase
  length of growing season for the next Rabi crop
• (ii) In irrigated -less rainfall arid regions,
  to remove toxic substances like salts rising in
  the root zone from saline/alkali water tables by
  evaporation.
• In humid regions generally the water quality is
  good and drainage is to be provided only for good
  aeration in root zone.
• The depths of tile drains are generally kept 2.5
  ft. to 3.0 ft. In arid regions with saline soils
  the root zone of the crops has to be kept free of
  salts from a saline water table.
• In such drainage systems, the depth of tile
  drains are kept 6.0 ft. to 8.0 ft.

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• In humid regions, the spacings are kept 30 ft.
  to 150 ft. apart and upto 300 ft. apart for very
  permeable soils.
• When permeability is very low one may get
  spacings 30 to 40 ft.
• Unless the crop is of very high value drainage
  becomes uneconomical with such spacings.
• In arid regions where depths are more, spacings
  may range from 300 ft. to 600 ft.
• (b) Vertical drainage
• Essentially this consists of a system of shallow
  tube wells spread in the area through
  intensification of minor irrigation works.
• Through direct extraction of ground water it
  lowers the water table.
• The drained water may be used to augment
  irrigation water supply in the area.
• Use of tube wells along with canal water could
  also be termed as conjunctive use.

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• HORIZONTAL DRAINAGE , Some Clarifications
• Can shallow Surface Drains lower water table and
  leach a Salt affected Profile?
• Surface drainage removes surface ponding and
  reduces the recharge on high water tables and is
  thus a good supplemental practice, but it cannot
  be used to lower water tables and remove salts
  from salt profile.
• For seepage to take place according to Darcys
  Law there should be some hydraulic gradient
  between the two points considered.
• For lowering of water table and removal of salts
  the amendments must permeate the soil mass .
• This is possible only through line sinks created
  in the form of sub surface drains.
• With shallow drains only sheet flow over surface
  can take place providing surface washing of
  salts from the surface without any effective
  leaching of the profile.

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• Reclamation by Leaching with Gypsum shallow water
  table areas and reversal of alkalinity
• Leaching has been found to be quite effective in
  areas with deep water tables. However carrying
  out reclamation at a heavy cost in areas with
  shallow water tables the areas have been found to
  return to original state of alkalinity.
• Deep open Drains Functions
• Deep open drains say up 80 cm or more depth are
  theoretically subsurface drains and equivalent in
  performance in tile drains.
• Being open at the surface they can perform
  surface drainage also, besides subsurface
  drainage, but they are difficult to maintain as
  well as to be crossed by men, animal and
  machinery.
• Earlier subsurface drainage works in other
  countries were carried out by such open drains
  but substituted later by covered drains.
• It took about a century to start from subsurface
  drainage through open drains stone drains to
  arrive at the system of closed perforated PVC
  pipes.

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To reduce or stop seepage is it necessary to
line all the earthen canals? With constraints on
funds, it may be infeasible to line all the
length of main canals and distributaries. Highly
permeable and low permeable zones should be
identified and as a first priority, only reaches
with high permeability may be lined, which may be
gradually extended. Effectiveness of Limited
Combination of Surface and Vertical
Drainage Sometimes a combination of vertical
drainage (small tube wells and surface drainage
(done by farmers) is planned providing all
amendments and fertilizer inputs. A monitoring
of water quality in recirculating the moderately
sodic ground waters, the continued addition of
chemical inputs and its long term projection is
desirable, besides the immediate benefit accrued
with such projects.
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Role of Blocking of natural Drainage by
Highways Railways and Canals There are large
areas (about 15-20 percent) in the country
waterlogged because of blocking of natural
drainage to overland flow due to manmade
structures like railways, highways and irrigation
canals. These structures provide very
insufficient size culverts/siphons for drainage
crossing to economise their own projects. Such
locations should be identified, indexed after
surveying to find the nature and extent of water
logging. Depending on funds available, the
culvert size and drainage ways should be
appropriately enlarged in phases. Role of
Toe/Interceptor Drains Interceptor drains are a
good device to reduce bank seepage from the
canals specially in the canal fill zone. It needs
however to be appreciated that Interceptor drains
can only partly reduce seepage from the canal
banks. They cannot reduce seepage from the bed of
the canals. The toe-drains of canals should be
properly constructed and maintained for effective
drainage of seepage water. Closed drains though
costly can be maintained better than open drains.
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Borrow pits along Roads Canals and
Railways Borrow pits along the road-side
railways and canals should be interconnected till
they are outletted in the cross drainage
works. Integrated System of Drainage from Field
to Outlet Total effective drainage from a command
area needs the essential components of field
drainage, intermediate link drainage and outlet
drainage. Outlet drains are important but such
a system without positive field drainage
construction may amount only to wastage of money.
In effect such a system would be parallel to
construction of main canals and distributaries by
one department and requiring establishment of
another department of CADA for utilization of
irrigation potential. It is desirable that all
the three components of drainage are coordinated
by the same authority for better effectiveness
and accountability.
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VERTICAL DRAINAGE Vertical drainage and
conjunctive use is another good way of lowering
water tables and providing subsurface drainage.
With good quality ground water it is an excellent
practice. On one hand it lowers the water table
and on the other hand through the same process it
also provides irrigation for increasing
production of agricultural crops. However, it is
important understand different issues involved
with it. One of the issues is whether one can
effectively implement conjunctive use in a
command area with the presently prevailing
democratic and socio-economic set up.
Conjunctive use of surface and ground water It is
term used for application of tube wells along
with canals for irrigation of agricultural crops.
Essentially this consists of a system of shallow
tube wells spread in the area through
intensification of minor irrigation works.
Through direct extraction of ground water it
lowers the water table. The drained water may be
used to augment irrigation water supply in the
area. Use of tube wells along with canal water
could also be termed as conjunctive use.
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Conjunctive use through vertical drainage
requires good quality ground water. Through
vertical drainage lowering of general ground
water level has to be done through large scale
pumping from shallow tube wells. Only shallow
tube wells are useful for lowering water table.
Deep tube wells in confined aquifers would not be
effective to lower the water table. According to
Smedema and Zimmer (1994) in Scarp programme of
Pakistan about 15000 large capacity tube wells
were installed to reduce rising water tables and
alleviate irrigation water shortage. The pumped
water was used to supplement canal supplies at
the head of the irrigation water courses. With
success of VD and CU programmes a large number of
farmers estimated as 300000 farmers started
constructing their own private tube wells. This
has been more successful in fresh water zone than
in high salinity ground waters. With private tube
wells and non existence of any ground water laws
it is difficult to implement it in an organised
way. Still encouragement of shallow tube well
pumping through minor irrigation in good quality
ground water areas along with reduction of canal
running duration should be helpful in improving
drainage conditions.
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• Well point system has Different Objective than
  Conjunctive Use
• Some times, the objective of vertical drainage is
  assigned as steady state lowering of water tables
  in the root zone for growing crops due to
  overlapping of draw down caused by pumping of
  closely spaced wells.
• In other words this is similar to the well known
  well point system.
• Such a system is used for building foundations
  or other structures in high water table areas
  where rapid lowering of water tables is required
  for short periods.
• Such a system is costly and would also involve
  high recurring energy costs and does not seem to
  be practicable for growing agricultural crops.
• It does not seem to be feasible for continued
  lowering of water tables in root zone for long
  periods necessary for growing crops.

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• Suitable Conditions For Conjunctive use
• de Ridder (1983), Attia and Twinhoff (1989)
  recommend technical feasibility of tube well
  drainage only based on geometry of aquifer
  hydraulic parameters, thickness and hydraulic
  resistance of clay cap, ground water quality and
  rate of recharge.
• According to them well drainage enables the
  ground water to be lowered to a much greater
  depth than gravity drainage.
• Where deeper layers of substrata are more
  pervious than layers near the surface pumping
  from these layers may reduce the artesian
  pressure that is often present creating a
  vertical downward flow through the upper layers.
• According to CWC and USAID the feasibility of
  tube well drainage is recommended for large areas
  of flat lands with high water tables, thick
  aquifers with good hydraulic conductivity, areas
  having high infiltration rates, ground water
  under artesian pressure, ground water with good
  quality, where pipe drainage is feasible but
  costly because of inadequate outlets, where
  ground water lowering is desired beyond 2 to 5 m.

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• BIO-DRAINAGE
• Utility of Bio drainage
• Bio-drainage is proposed as a good method of
  subsurface drainage.
• However, it is important to identify appropriate
  situations where this method can be effectively
  and usefully utilized.
• It is unfair to assign it an objective which it
  can not take care and then misinterpret the
  approach.
• It is a good method to reduce bank seepage in
  canals and have been used for this purpose in
  many canal commands
• It is not only an economic method of drainage, it
  also improves the ecology of the area and is
  environment friendly.
• It provides costly wood useful for multifarious
  purposes and also various range of bio-mass.
• It can transpire water from ground water table in
  good amounts. A large range of crops tolerant to
  salinity can be grown in salt affected lands.
• It is a good method for economical exploitation
  of a waste land.

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Bio drainage useful for long term water table
lowering but not for growing Agricultural
Crops Agricultural drainage requires frequent and
rapid lowering 1 to 2 m of water table in 2 to 3
days after every recharge due to
irrigation/rainfall during the crop growth
period. If trees can lower water table by 1 m in
1 to 2 years what will happen to crops during
this period. This, lowering also is possible
only if there is no recharge in the tree cropped
area. If there is frequent recharge due to
irrigation/rainfall it does not appear feasible
that the water table can be lowered by tree
crops. There does not seem to be any
experimental evidence at international level of
bio drainage having been used for production of
agricultural and food crops. All the suggested
plan of creating point source, line source, wind
rows, strip planting and planting in other
geometries through trees along with agricultural
crops appears to be theoretical which has not
been physically demonstrated anywhere for growing
agricultural crops.
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Bio drainage utility in old or new commands The
trees have to be planted till they become
affective in providing evapotranspiration. This
is possible only in new commands not yet
water-logged. In water-logged and salt affected
commands it is not practical to plant and
establish trees. if they can be planted and
grown over a time seepage process from the canal
would require to wait for their becoming old
enough to provide evapotranspiration. Bio
drainage can remove only water and not the salts
from a saline soil? There are no evidence of
systematically controlled experiments to
demonstrate removal of salts from a saline high
water table soil profile. Growing salt tolerant
crops does not imply removal of salts from soil
profile and enabling it for growth of
agricultural crops. The scope of bio-drainage
seemed to be more favourable in arid zone where
drainage surpluses are small in relation to
evapotranspiration rates (1 to 2 mm/day vs 10
mm/day).
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• USE OF PRODUCTIVITY CONCEPT IN WATER LOGGED LANDS
• According to Sikka and Bhatnagar (2004) a
  substantial area in the eastern region is
  categorised as water congested or waterlogged
  area where water remains stagnated for a long
  period.
• In Bihar itself, about 2,00,000 ha is under
  Chaurs and nearly 7300 ha under Mauns (Singh and
  Ahmad, 2003).
• In addition, large portion of the canal commands
  or lowlands get seasonally waterlogged during
  monsoon period.
• Waterlogging starts from July and lasts upto
  November and in some parts it remains waterlogged
  even upto January.
• Such areas remain poorly utilised with some paddy
  production with low yields (1-2 t/ha) and
  harvesting of wild fishes (100-200 kg/ha).
• Similarly there are lot of borrow pits, excavated
  for soil for raising field level or house
  construction. Although such pits are mostly of
  small sizes (100-300 m2), and remain unfit for
  commercial fish cultivation, but the possibility
  of growing cultured fish was explored with the
  farmers and self help groups to have some
  production.

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• Fish trenches cum raised bunds
• Under such conditions, trenches are dug such that
  water level in the trenches fluctuates between
  1.5 to 2.0 m during monsoon period to make it
  congenial to grow most of the cultured fishes.
• The excavated soil is used to form bunds around
  the trenches so that the level rises by 15-20 cm
  above the max. water level in trenches.
• These raised bunds are suitable to grow
  horticultural crops (Banana, papaya etc.) and
  vegetables even during monsoon period and may be
  irrigated using trench water.
• Hence, the area which was purely unutilised,
  could be put to intensive production of fish and
  horticultural / vegetable crops.
• Efforts are being made to evaluate such
  interventions under different set of conditions.
• Fish and freshwater prawns can move between the
  sub-system and benefit from the decomposing rice
  straw, the fallen fruits and from insect
  droppings into the water.

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• Rice-fish culture using nylon pens
• The international stocking and culture of fish in
  rice fields has a long history, particularly in
  China, with numerous designs (Prein, 2002).
• Usually a small portion (5-20) of the rice field
  is converted into a trench, a refuge pond or both
  in combination.
• Trench layouts vary considerably in their
  location in the rice fields.
• In India, such intervention is being carried out
  on varying scale by the farmers in Arunachal
  Pradesh, Orissa and other coastal areas. However,
  in spite of its potential, it is not in practice
  in Bihar.
• A preliminary trial conducted at ICAR RCER, Patna
  indicated possibility of growing fish in rice
  fields under seasonal waterlogging condition
  (standing water of 15 cm or more for around 3
  months) with fish yield of 200 kg/ha without any
  problem

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• POLICY ISSUES FOR PROMOTING AGRICULTURAL DRAINAGE
• Periodic monitoring and reporting of Water tables
• It is necessary to determine pre monsoon and post
  monsoon water tables every three years in order
  to determine the increase in the extent of water
  logging with progress of time for the pre-monsoon
  and post-monsoon season.
• Only a periodic comparison of successive
  pre-monsoon water levels or successive post
  monsoon water levels for every three years can
  provide this information.
• Long term canal rostering and conjunctive use in
  waterlogged area
• In high water table areas with good water
  quality water, conjunctive use through
  intensification of subsidies on minor irrigation
  works and lesser release of water in main canals
  and distributaries should be properly planned and
  encouraged.

37

• In the canal commands, irrigation should be
  reduced by long duration rostering of canal
  networks considering ground water levels in the
  areas.
• If the water level is less than 5 m b.g.l., canal
  irrigation should be discouraged.
• For paddy cultivation, canal irrigation should be
  given preference but over-irrigation should be
  discouraged.
• Where canal irrigation is in vogue it is strongly
  recommended to go for a conjunctive use of
  surface and groundwater and to use adequate
  quantity of groundwater from tube well irrigation
  so that the pre-monsoon groundwater level should
  be around 10 m below land surface.
• Further rostering of the canals for long periods
  and use of groundwater for irrigation will lower
  the water table and keep it in control and,
  thereby, increase the agricultural production.

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• Necessity of a separate body to look after
  Drainage provision and maintenance
• There should be an independent investigation
  and planning organization in Irrigation
  department for collection of drainage data,
  drainage surveys, storage and processing of data
  base and preparing and dovetailing of drainage
  project in an integrated manner. This needs
  being implemented in right spirit.
• Integrated approach of drainage starting from
  drainage link drains main drains and natural
  waterway
• For appropriate agricultural drainage, it is
  necessary that field drains link drains and main
  drains should be constructed and made to function
  in an integrated manner.
• Most of field drains constructed by rural
  development projects have been encroached by
  farmers by putting bunds across drain for
  irrigation or putting it to cultivation.
• It is necessary to establish responsibility of
  repairs and maintenance on some institution which
  presently does not exist.

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• In highly waterlogged areas where drainage is
  difficult and costly Water Productivity concepts
  may be used as developed in different Research
  complexes and Water Technology Centers.
• Simultaneous Planning and sanction of Irrigation
  and Drainage but implementation of Irrigation
  woks carried only for Irrigation.
• The drainage projects components are
  simultaneously provided along with the irrigation
  project.
• But generally irrigation component of the
  projects are completed expeditiously, whereas,
  drainage component keeps lagging.
• Such disbalance in project construction should be
  properly monitored and discouraged.

40

• Drainage Maintenance Norms
• The norms of maintenance of drains
  recommended by expert committee, Govt. of India
  (1981) should be appropriately followed.
• Only 35 percent of cost of maintenance of drains
  being met by state government is insufficient and
  should be increased for effective results.
• The various provisions of North India Canal and
  Drainage Act (1873) and its modification
  requiring Gaon Sabha to construct repair and
  maintain the water courses below the outlet
  should be suitably amended to appropriately
  define the responsibility of Gaon Sabha and
  various departments.
• Similar modifications needs be done in respect of
  Panchayat Raj Act (1947).