Rajasthan Command Area Development and Settlement Project

This project, cofinanced by IFAD and the World Bank and effective in 1980, was part of the largest irrigation project in India at that time, the Indira Ghandi Nahar Project, consisting of a 445 km main canal and the associated distribution systems. The objective was to develop the area and the villages within it, home to about 39,000 households.

The project aimed to irrigate settled land in north-west Rajasthan state, where 37 per cent of the land was desert. Despite a series of problems that led to revised targets, the project was particularly successful in impeding erosion along the banks of canals through forestation. The project introduced the first accurate measurements of groundwater
level and quality.

Source: IFAD