- In Jamal, a village in Haryana’s Sisra district, farmers build a pond in their farms called diggi, to store water from the canals through which supply is limited.
- They use solar pumps to pump out saline groundwater into the diggi which mixes the two waters, reducing the salinity, which they then use for irrigating their fields.
- For policy to become intelligent, it should not replace farmer wisdom, but build around it.
- The views in the commentary are that of the authors.
In the sandy fields of Jamal, a village in the Sirsa district of Haryana, water for irrigation does not arrive through a single source. It is mixed, stored, lifted, diluted, timed, subsidised and improvised.
Jamal’s landscape first appears dry and exposed: mustard and wheat fields stretch across a semi-arid plain, field channels cutting through farms, sand dunes levelled into cultivable plots, and very few functioning tubewells in the conventional sense. But the most striking feature is the diggi — a pond, often lined and built within the farmland.
Mixing canal water and groundwater
Canal water has clear agronomic value for a farmer: it is usually fresh, low-cost, and is drawn from Himalayan river flows and monsoon-fed storage. But it has limits. It moves through schedules, rotations, field channels, upstream–downstream hierarchies, tail-end losses and sometimes informal diversion. For farmers, this means canal water is valuable, but rarely fully controllable. It is not “on-demand” irrigation; it is scheduled irrigation.
The Green Revolution made these limits sharper. High-yielding crops require water at the right time and in the right amount. This created space for what scholars describe as “atomistic irrigation” which means private wells and pumps that give farmers control, flexibility and timely access. Groundwater offers command. But at times, the groundwater’s quality becomes its biggest limitation. In regions with high groundwater salinity, the water is undesirable for irrigation.
Jamal, on the Haryana–Rajasthan border, sits precisely in that type of region. It lies near the tail end of Haryana’s canal system, where canal water is precious but uncertain. At the same time, the surrounding groundwater is highly saline. One source has quality but limited reliability; the other has reliability but poor quality. Farmers needed a balance of both.
That missing connector was the diggi. Farmers store canal water in these farm ponds instead of using it for irrigating their fields directly. They then use solar pumps to extract and add groundwater into the diggi, mixing the two before irrigation.
Support for canal restoration, diggi construction and solar pumps
Haryana is known for its dense canal network, much of it built through the 20th century, with major expansion continuing into the 1980s. Over time, ageing infrastructure, siltation, weak regulation, seepage losses and poor maintenance reduced both the efficiency and reliability of canals for irrigation. Tail-end villages such as Jamal bore the brunt of this decline. Over the last decade, however, the state has tried to revive canals through support from the central government, NABARD, the World Bank and state funds. An upcoming project in the state – Water Secure Haryana Programme (WSHP) also reflects the same priority. Ajeet Hudda, an irrigation engineer who led canal rehabilitation efforts in Sirsa, said the Irrigation and Water Resources Department worked on desilting, canal lining, repair of outlets, restoration of minor canals and better regulation to increase carrying capacity, reach and reliability. The field accounts support these claims.
Jamal receives water through Mangala Minor, Jamal Minor and the Kutiyana Distributary. Suresh Ramjilal Dudi, a farmer from the village, says canal supply became more dependable after rehabilitation. Farmers also say that seepage from unlined sections, especially during monsoon flows, creates pockets of relatively fresher groundwater near canal channels.
But canal water still needed storage and control. That is where the diggi helps. Initially promoted through agriculture-linked schemes such as Rashtriya Krishi Vikas Yojana (RKVY), and later supported through Haryana’s Micro Irrigation and Command Area Development Authority (MICADA) framework, farm ponds became the place where canal water could be held, timed and mixed.
Solar pumps completed the system. Earlier, farmers depended on diesel engines, tractors or erratic electricity to lift water. This method also consumes double the energy: first to move groundwater into the diggi, and then to irrigate the mixed water to the crop. Diesel made this expensive; unreliable electricity made it uncertain.
Pradhan Mantri Kisan Urja Suraksha evam Utthaan Mahabhiyan (PM-KUSUM), launched in 2019, changed that equation by subsidising standalone solar agricultural pumps and pump solarisation. This assembly of these different features resulted in assured irrigation for farmers like Suresh Ramji Dudi and Ram Singh in Jamal. But interestingly, none of these schemes was designed as one package. Canal rehabilitation came through irrigation agencies, diggi support through agriculture or MICADA-linked routes, and solar pumps through PM-KUSUM. Farmers assembled them into a working irrigation system. That integration is innovation.
When asked where the idea of mixing canal water and groundwater came from, Suresh Ramjilal Dudi, one of the early diggi users in Jamal, pulled out his smartphone and opened YouTube. He said videos showed farmers across the state border in Punjab, especially around Abohar and Fazilka, using similar dryland-water arrangements.
Then he started a group on the messaging platform, WhatsApp, called “CSC Jamal”, run by a local youth, where farmers discuss agricultural schemes, subsidy updates, government job openings and more. Dudi explained that once farmers identify a scheme of interest, they take their documents to the local CSC or community service centre, which helps with online forms, uploads, and application processes. For the diggi, he also had to visit the local MICADA office. In some cases, government-listed vendors contact farmers directly and help move the process forward.
It is often argued that the upcoming generation is moving away from agriculture, while older farmers remain less comfortable with digital systems. But in Jamal, these two gaps are also creating an unexpected fit. Many older farmers are not fully comfortable with online portals, forms and digital documentation, but they know the land, water and crops intimately. Their children may not want to farm, yet they often know how to navigate smartphones, PDFs, OTPs and online applications. The younger generation may not be tomorrow’s farmers, but they remain farmers’ children. That family cord quietly helps farms cross the digital threshold and acquire suitable subsidies.
Lessons from Jamal
Jamal’s story shows that water solutions do not always arrive as complete packages. Sometimes they exist as scattered parts: a canal repair, a pond subsidy, a solar pump scheme. Farmers assemble these fragments into systems that fit their fields.
The role of policy, then, is not always to prescribe one ideal model from above. It is to create a well-stocked “supermarket” of credible, affordable and well-communicated options — and trust farmers to choose combinations that suit their ecology and economy. Farmers should be able to walk through this policy supermarket with their own needs in mind. Subsidies can make the options affordable; extension can make them understandable; local institutions can make them reachable. The government’s role is to ensure the labels, safeguards and accountability in this supermarket.
Jamal shows that farmers are not passive recipients of schemes; they are conscious, capable and intelligent. For policy to become equally intelligent, it is not to replace farmer wisdom, but to build around it.
However, assured irrigation is not the same as sustainable irrigation. Once water becomes more reliable, farmers change crops. In parts of Jamal, improved access to usable water has encouraged a shift from traditional dryland crops towards paddy. Thus, the sustainability of this supply-side water management needs investigation.
Equity also remains an open question. Not every farmer has accessed a diggi, a solar pump or the same canal advantage. Examining the enablers and barriers might provide further insights.
Banner image: A diggi in Jamal. Image by Partik Kumar.
Partik is a PhD researcher at the University of York, UK, and Parul is a Senior Project Officer at BAIF Development Research Foundation. Both previously worked on the groundwater management programme in Haryana.
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