Sustainable agriculture through watershed development programme: A study of Bahirwadi Watershed Project, Ahmednagar, Maharashtra

The study revealed that the achievements in the watershed development activities were to the extent of 94.25 percent. A remarkable increase of about 29.63 percent was observed in the case of irrigated area during the years under study. This was mainly because of completion of watershed development works. The productivity of major crop had considerably increased (7.84 to 29.45 percent in major crops) over the base year. The per hectare total income accrued jointly from the crop production and the livestock activities during the current year showed an increase of 59.23 percent over the base year with an overall B:C ratio of 1.56. The increased irrigation facilities and milch animals had resulted in to increase in the per worker annual employment for male and female workers during current year by 43.71 and 53.70 percent, respectively over the base year. The watershed project was found to be economically viable since the BCR was observed to be more than unity with IRR as 39.86 percent.