Irrigation has been practiced in India since time immemorial. Wells and tanks, as known today's as 'minor irrigation works', were constructed by several kings of ancient times for public welfare. Significant development irrigation, however, can be stated to have commenced from 1850 onwards, with large-scale or major irrigation projects. These activities have been further accelerated after Independence in 1947. Today, India has about 34 million hectares of land under irrigation and this amounts to about one-fifth of the total cultivated area. Source-wise, crop-wise and state-wise irrigated areas in the country are shown in Tables 1,2 and 3. Major irrigation projects, irrigating more than 0.10 million hectares, have been listed in Table 4.

With utilization water resources, both from the surface flows and from the ground-water recharge, the Second Irrigation Commission has calculated that the ultimate area that can be irrigated is of the order of about 82 million hectares in the country. Till the end of the Fourth Plan, about 45 per cent of the surface utilizable flow and about 20 per cent of the usable ground-water was proposed to be utilized to irrigate about 34 million hectares.