RELATING IRRIGATION INTENSITY TO CROP DIVERSIFICATION: A SPATIO- TEMPORAL STUDY IN MURSHIBADAB DISTRICT, WEST BENGAL (1996-97 TO 2006-07)

Agricultural development of a region depends on irrigation intensity and on crop diversification too. While Irrigation Intensity is percent of irrigated land to gross cultivated land, Crop Diversification is the multiple cropping system i.e. addition of more crops to the existing cropping system along with use of crop specie, etc. In the present paper by taking Murshidabad district, of West Bengal as study area, variations of crop diversification in response to fast changing physical and socio-cultural conditions are studied for 1996-1997 and 2006-2007 employing Jasbir Singh (1976) index of crop diversification which further aids to know the cropping pattern, crop concentration, crop variation etc. in situ. Employing Ram's technique (1979) irrigation intensity regions are delineated. To relate the two foresaid, scatter diagram has been used and plotted. The study revealed the fact that with the increase in irrigation intensity a tendency towards diversification is glimpsed in the study area.