Find out the source of Irrigation that has registered the maximum improvement…

Concept

Percentage change measures how far a quantity has moved relative to its own starting size: (final value − initial value) ÷ initial value × 100. Because the denominator is the quantity's own base, an identical absolute rise means very different things at different scales — a rise of 600 on a base of 3,600 is one sixth of that base, while the same rise of 600 on a base of 34,000 is under two per cent of it. Ranking categories by absolute increase and ranking them by percentage increase are therefore two different orderings, and a question that asks for the maximum improvement in terms of percentage asks for the second ordering, not the first.

Application

Take the 2002-03 and 2003-04 rows of the table and divide each source’s rise by its own 2002-03 figure (all figures in thousand hectares):

1. Government canals: 13,863 → 14,444. Rise = 581. 581 ÷ 13,863 × 100 ≈ 4.19%.

2. Private canals: 206 → 206. Rise = 0. 0 ÷ 206 × 100 = 0%.

3. Tanks: 1,802 → 1,908. Rise = 106. 106 ÷ 1,802 × 100 ≈ 5.88%.

4. Tube wells and other wells: 34,250 → 35,779. Rise = 1,529. 1,529 ÷ 34,250 × 100 ≈ 4.46%.

5. Other sources: 3,657 → 4,281. Rise = 624. 624 ÷ 3,657 × 100 ≈ 17.06%.

Cross-check

Setting the absolute rise beside the percentage rise separates the two orderings cleanly:

The largest absolute rise, 1,529, belongs to tube wells and other wells, but it sits on a base of 34,250 and so dilutes to roughly 4.46%. Other sources adds a far smaller 624, yet its base is only 3,657, so the same division yields about 17.06% — close to three times the next-highest percentage in the column. An independent sanity check agrees: one sixth of 3,657 would take it to about 4,266, and the recorded 4,281 is a little above that, so the growth is indeed slightly more than one sixth, or about 17%.

Answer

Other sources registered the maximum improvement, a rise of about 17.06 per cent in net irrigated area between 2002-03 and 2003-04.