AN EMPIRICAL ANALYSIS ON SOCIO ECONOMIC AND CROPPING PATTERNS IN INDI BRANCH CANAL OF UPPER KRISHNA PROJECT

ABSTRACT The study was conducted to know the impact of water distribution on farmer's socioeconomic conditions and cropping pattern across Indi branch canal of upper Krishna project command area. The Sample size comprised of 135 farmers, selected using multi- stage random sampling method. Field level data were elicited for the agricultural year 2013-14 through personal interview method. For analyzing the data collected tabular analysis was employed. Relatively a large (37.77 % to 48.89 %) proportion of them across different reaches were aged more than 50 years and 41.48 per cent were illiterates. With respect to occupation, large proportion of head reach farmers pursued dairy (42.22 %). The extent of land degradation noticed was more in head reach (12.82 %) out of the owned land. It was noticed that, in the head reach of the canal system kharif and bi-seasonal crops occupied a large proportion of the cropped area (45.54 and 37.57 %).