NE has less irrigated areas than national average

Barring Manipur (38.96 per cent) and Nagaland (30.59 per cent), in all other states of the North-East, the proportion of gross irrigated area as percentage of gross cropped area varies from nearly eight per cent to 18 per cent, which is much less than the national average.

The Centre for Science and Environment (CSE), New Delhi, has recently taken initiative to make rainwater harvesting a popular technology in the region. Hills constitute nearly 70 per cent of the total land area in the North East where shifting agriculture, popularly called jhum is the chief land use. The Brahmaputra and the Barak valleys in Assam are the areas where settled agriculture is practised.

While shifting agriculture in the hills lead to fall in soil fertility and environmental degradation, the traditional agriculture in the plain has ben facing the problem of transformation.

Irrigation has acquired increasing importance among all the inputs in agriculture and the Government has not done enough to solve the problems of irrigation in the North-East. Dongs constructed by Bodo tribes in Assam, bamboo drip irrigation by tribes in Meghalaya, Zobo in Nagaland and Apatami system in Arunachal Pradesh are some of the instances of traditional water harvesting system in the region since antiquity.

They harvest monsoon run-off by capturing water from swollen streams during the rainy season and store the water in various forms of water bodies. Raindrops are also harvested directly from rooftops and stored in tanks built in the courtyards. However, the traditional systems have deteriorated because of the weakening of traditional arrangements for managing these facilities. In fact, many of the traditional forms and practices need change in the light of changing demographic, socio-political and economic contexts. 

Community participation in water management and watershed development in the form of small and medium irrigation work has an important part to play in developing irrigation infrastructure. The rainy season in the North-Eastern region normally commences from March and lasts till the middle of October. Rainwater management with a micro watershed through water harvesting or ground water recharge and recycling of water for various uses is the key to success in watershed based water management in the North-East. There is need for a more holistic approach for the region and the government should come forward to encourage rainwater harvesting through awareness programmes and investment in research and development in this traditional technology.

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