This paper examines the role of irrigation in agricultural development in Bangladesh by quantifying the relationship of fertilizer consumption and adoption of HYVs with irrigation, and estimating the effect of irrigation on the intensity of land use and the growth of crop output and productivity, using the 1983/84 district level cross-section data. It supplements the work by Boyce, who conducted a similar analysis with the 1976/77 district level data estimated by the Agricultural Census. The results show a stronger relationship between irrigation and the growth of crop output and productivity than that shown by Boyce and further confirms his conclusion that irrigation poses the key technological constraint to agricultural development in Bangladesh