The major challenges in providing irrigation include the following:
- Lack of proper management of the MIPs
- Most importantly the lack of community participation
There are different stakeholders within the MIPs such as the farmers in the ayacut of the MIPs, the fisher who would do fishing in the reservoir, the tenant farmers and wage labourers working within the MIPs etc. For the successful functioning of the MIPs, it is important that all the stakeholders are taken into consideration for participating in decision making for water and tank management at the grassroots. The state has enacted the Pani Panchayat Act whereby Pani Panchayats are formed in the MIPs of Odisha by the Department of Water Resources, GoO. It was thus a state level institution had been created to carry out the restoration and renovation works of the MIPs with active involvement of all the stakeholders.
