The state of Madhya Pradesh in central India has 15.5 million hectares (Mha) of cultivable farmland with an average land holding of less than 3 ha per family. Prior to year 2014, only 2.4 Mha was irrigated and almost all area through gravity-based canals. Variations of water availability and water demand at spatial and temporal scale has necessitated a paradigm shift in irrigation water delivery system in the state. Highly efficient pressurized piped irrigation networks (PINs) coupled with automation and SCADA aiming to deliver water from reservoir to farm level are currently being implemented in roughly 2.2 Mha of previously rainfed farmland. Use of PINs has allowed to allocate the scarce irrigation water to double the cultivable area that is normally possible by canal irrigation systems. The irrigation through PINs for the 2.2 Mha was undertaken in roughly 70 different lift irrigation projects, ranging from 6,000 ha to 130,000 ha. One of these projects involves lifting 15 m3/s flowrate from one river basin to another by over 480 m through 38 km of 3 m diameter mild steel pipeline. The authors were closely involved with two largescale projects (Mohanpura and Kundalia) of 285,000 ha that have pioneered this state-of-the-art PINs venture and demonstrated the unanticipated high water use efficiency, water productivity and socio-economic benefits that PINs offer. This paper attempts to capture performance evaluation and benchmarking of these projects highlighting the water savings of about 40% and its bearing on, not only the ongoing PINs projects catering to 2.2 Mha farmland but on the entire water planning and water policy of the state. The paper also describes the challenges associated with the design and implementation of projects of such unprecedented scale.
