| |
Introduction:
PIM as a concept is no more on trial.
There has been a definitive change in the situation in respect of
the Participatory Irrigation Management (PIM) in India since the
late eighties. In the late eighties there were very few Water Users
Associations (WUAs) in any form whatsoever and the Irrigation Departments
(IDs) of the various states were extremely skeptical, if not hostile,
to the concept of PIM. Much of the discussion in meetings and conferences
on PIM was focused on arguing for or against PIM.
Today the situation seems to have changed completely. At least four
states (Andhra Pradesh, Madhya Pradesh, Karnataka and Orissa) have
now enacted legislation that makes PIM a statutory requirement to
get access to irrigation water. WUAs have grown up in almost all
other states and many of the states (like Maharashtra) are contemplating
enactment of similar legislation. While the sceptics are still around,
their number is diminishing and the question of whether or not there
is a need for PIM seems to have been largely answered in the affirmative.
As Uphoff observed, “the question is no longer whether decentralised
collective action can be effective, but under what circumstances
it is appropriate, and how positive synergy between the state, market
and civil organisations can most effectively and fairly supply goods
. . .” In other words it means that decentralised collective
action and participatory management of resources as a concept is
no longer on trial, though there may be some differences in the
details and there is a need to work out the necessary conditions
for its success. This paper, therefore, proposes that our deliberations
start with the assumption that PIM is desirable and it is already
here to stay. The discussion, therefore, needs to shift to more
substantive issues that deal with achieving the professed goals
of PIM, that is, converting the rhetoric of efficiency, equity,
sustainability and decentralised governance into reality.Today the
situation seems to have changed completely. At least four states
(Andhra Pradesh, Madhya Pradesh, Karnataka and Orissa) have now
enacted legislation that makes PIM a statutory requirement to get
access to irrigation water. WUAs have grown up in almost all other
states and many of the states (like Maharashtra) are contemplating
enactment of similar legislation. While the sceptics are still around,
their number is diminishing and the question of whether or not there
is a need for PIM seems to have been largely answered in the affirmative.
As Uphoff observed, “the question is no longer whether decentralised
collective action can be effective, but under what circumstances
it is appropriate, and how positive synergy between the state, market
and civil organisations can most effectively and fairly supply goods
. . .” In other words it means that decentralised collective
action and participatory management of resources as a concept is
no longer on trial, though there may be some differences in the
details and there is a need to work out the necessary conditions
for its success. This paper, therefore, proposes that our deliberations
start with the assumption that PIM is desirable and it is already
here to stay. The discussion, therefore, needs to shift to more
substantive issues that deal with achieving the professed goals
of PIM, that is, converting the rhetoric of efficiency, equity,
sustainability and decentralised governance into reality.
Thus, there is a need now to turn attention more to the issues that
are involved, on what obstacles it faces, on what role it can play
in transforming the water sector and restructuring it to ensure
good performance, equitable access and sustainability.
This paper is not intended to be a comprehensive and definitive
presentation of issues. What it shall try to do is to outline issues
that need to be discussed and to demarcate the area that they need
to cover. Each of these areas needs to be dealt with separately
and in much greater depth than is done here. The effort is more
to outline a string of issues that can be taken up in greater detail
at this workshop and elsewhere so as to initiate and continue a
dialogue around these issues. And also, if possible, to evolve certain
amount of consensus on some of these key concepts and issues, amongst
different stakeholders to make PIM more focussed and effective.
PIM in Maharashtra
Before we turn to the overview of other issues, it may be useful
to have very brief look at the progress of PIM in Maharashtra. Other
papers shall have a closer look at other states as well. Maharashtra
has had a long historical tradition of collective management of
irrigation though such systems were restricted to certain localities
and/or caste-dominated irrigation areas. They were not universal.
The first attempt to start a Water Users' Association (WUA), with
modern technical, organisational, and social considerations was
made in 1989, with the establishment of a WUA on a minor on the
right bank canal of Mula Irrigation Project in Ahmednagar district.
Since then, the PIM movement has taken firm roots in the state and
has shown slow but steady expansion. At present, there are 2,472
WUAs in the state at the different stages of development. (See Table
1 below.)
|
Table 1: Progress of PIM in Maharashtra |
Project Type
|
Major and Medium
|
Minor
|
Total |
| No. of functioning
societies |
498 |
35 |
533 |
| CCA in '000 ha |
146.9
|
12 |
158.9 |
No. of societies where agreement
has been signed, but management not taken over
|
109 |
20 |
129 |
CCA in '000 ha
|
39.7 |
7 |
46.3 |
No. of societies registered,
but agreement not yet signed
|
108 |
160 |
963 |
| CCA in '000 ha |
297.2 |
50.1 |
347.3 |
| No. of societies proposed but
not yet registered |
671 |
176 |
847 |
| CCA in '000 ha |
197 |
47.8 |
244.8 |
| Total No. of societies |
2,081 |
391 |
2472 |
CCA in '000 ha
|
680.4
|
117.1 |
797.9 |
Salient Features of the Maharashtra
WUAs
 |
WUAs in the state are essentially
voluntary organizations formed by the farmers and registered
under the Co-operative Societies Act. |
|
No WUA may be registered unless
51 percent of the farmers (or owners of 51 percent of the
area) in the jurisdiction of the proposed WUA become founding
members and pay the requisite fees. |
|
Before handing over water management
to the WUA an Agreement/ Memorandum of Understanding (MoU)
has to be signed jointly by the Society and Irrigation Department.
Among other things, the MoU specifies the seasonal/annual
quotas, methods of measurement, delivery system, water fees
to be paid to the Department, incentives/penalties for early/delayed
payments, rights, duties, responsibilities of the concerned
parties, etc. |
|
Water is delivered to the WUA at the Minor
head (i.e. in the jurisdiction of WUA) on a volumetric basis.
Similarly, rates are based on volume delivered to the Societies.
Though the Government fixes volumetric rates for payment to
the Department, the WUA is free to determine the rates to
be paid by the farmers to the WUA. |
|
Once the quotas are fixed for each WUA, the
Department does not insist on a given crop pattern. In other
words, WUA has complete freedom of cropping. |
The GoM in their resolution dated July 23, 2001 has indicated that
henceforth no water permission would be given to individual farmers.
Only Societies are eligible for water entitlements. The State Government
is keen to have a comprehensive legislation governing the WUAs in
the State. This draft Act entitled “Farmer’s Management
of Irrigation System” along with drafts of other complementary
legislation has been widely circulated and discussed for the past
two years. However, the Act is yet to be passed.
The
legislative strategy and the motivational strategy
One of the first wider issues that we need to consider is the issue
of the strategy that is being adopted for PIM. Two broad strategies
may be identified: the legislative strategy and the motivational
strategy. The Andhra Pradesh and Madhya Pradesh experience broadly
exemplifies the legislative strategy. It concentrates on a rapid
and extensive introduction of PIM through legislative measures.
In contrast, the Maharashtra and Gujarat experience mainly exemplifies
the motivational strategy. The emphasis is on first building up
awareness, creating motivation and then introducing PIM. These strategies
could also be contrasted as top-down and bottom-up strategies respectively.
The former is also called the `big bang approach’.
The achievements of both these strategies may be seen to be complementary.
The legislative strategy has been successful in introducing PIM
on a large scale. However, the performance has been poor, in that
there is no great expansion in benefits in the before and after
PIM situations. Not much has changed on the ground, and if nothing
much is done about it, farmers are bound to see it as one more regime
change with very little grassroots relevance. In AP recently elections
to WUAs were withheld and all the WUAs were superseded and administrators
were appointed. The entire process of democratic functioning was
in a way aborted by the Government. In contrast, the Maharashtra
and Gujarat strategy has achieved spectacular results, and Mula
Minor 7, Katepurna and Ozar in Maharashtra and societies formed
by the DSC and AKRSP in Gujarat and the like have provided inspiration
and guidance to many PIM efforts. However, in this strategy, the
rate of expansion of PIM has been very small and the proportionate
area covered by PIM is insignificant in relation to the total irrigated
area in these states.
What seems to be clear from the experience of the two strategies
is that in the absence of a supporting and enabling legislation
there is little chance of PIM extending itself to large areas. However,
we need to take into account the experience and learning that the
motivational strategy has accumulated and integrate that learning
with the legislative and policy measures. How these strategies can
be integrated in a synergetic manner is an issue that needs debate
and deliberation.
The issue
of volumetric supply
One of the important lessons of the Maharashtra experience in particular
is the importance of volumetric supply and pricing. Though there
seems to be a consensus on the desirability of volumetric supply
and pricing, doubts are often raised about its practicability. In
this respect it is important to realise that volumetric supply and
pricing change the nature of the stake that a farmer has in irrigation.
When a farmer receives a supply on an area basis, s/he receives
a service for his field. S/he is not interested in the water that
flows out of his/her field (in the losses) because his/her stake
does not cover that portion of the water. In that sense, the water
that flows out of his/her field is not water that s/he has paid
for or has to pay for. When s/he is delivered water on a volumetric
basis, the water that flows away is water that s/he has paid for,
it is water in which s/he has a stake and there is a possibility
of getting him/her motivated to save that water, to increase his/her
stake. Volumetric supply is necessary to make him/her a stakeholder
in the quantum of water.
[1]
However, there is another dimension to volumetric supply that we
need to take into account. Switching to volumetric supply and pricing
also means that we cannot have strictly regulated localisation patterns,
and a much greater leeway will need to be granted to crop patterns
and practices. Indeed, this is already happening. In all command
areas, crop patterns have undergone a drastic change and this departure
from crop patterns as they were originally designed is at the root
of a host of problems. In fact this has emerged as one of the main
reasons for deprivation/tail ender problem in the irrigation commands
as was seen in the tail ender/deprivation study conducted across
different states.
[2] Moreover,
in an agriculture dominated more and more by the market systems,
crop patterns tend to vary greatly unlike those in largely subsistence
agriculture where the core of the crop pattern shows much greater
stability. Volumetric supply ensures that there is an element of
stability, a stable reference, for both farmers and system administrators.
Also, it is necessary to acknowledge that volumetric supply is not
a dogma and once it is accepted in principle then there could be
different ways of actually operationalising it according to the
local situation.
[3]. Also the
volumetric prices could vary across projects and regions within
the same state. There is always some impact of prevalent crop patterns
and strictly volumetric rates may militate against less remunerative
essential crops, for example, food crops. In such cases, two sets
of measures may be needed: on part of the state to attenuate overall
rates in a manner that takes this into account; and secondly, for
WUAs to internally attenuate their pricing so as to adjust greater
earnings from more remunerative crops against relatively higher
rates.
Water use planning
and project level turn over
PIM does not simply visualise turn over of the system at the minor
level, but sees a progressive federation at every level, from distributary,
branch canal up to the project level. Viewed from the point of view
of user control, control at the minor level confers very little
control and very little discretionary power over the resource. It
is only as one goes up higher in the administrative ladder of the
project that transfer of control begins to become real. This is
a contentious issue and involves the relinquishment of substantial
power on part of the irrigation officials. No bureaucracy ever gives
up power so easily and while most irrigation officials have come
round to welcoming minor level WUA control, a very substantial number
are opposed to any transfer of real power and drafts (of PIM Acts)
have often been diluted in this respect. However there are a few
examples in some states like Karnataka and Maharashtra where persistent
efforts have paved the way for creation of project level federations
taking over the entire project management. But these are by far
few and recent to give any insights into the gains and obstacles
in project level turnovers.
PIM efforts and legislation need to provide for progressive transfer
of the system at higher levels into the hands of bodies that are
composed of all major stakeholder representatives along with the
direct beneficiaries in the designated command (this shall become
clear later below). There is a need to treat the minor level operation
as a preparatory school for becoming familiar with water use planning
and principles.
Unfortunately, water use planning is not done participatively in
most PIM contexts. It is the officials who prepare the plan and
the WUAs often are simply implementing bodies with no real control
over or participation in the process. Water use planning is not
treated as part of the training for WUAs and is considered too complex
for them to absorb. There is a need for demystification of this
process as overly technical. It is important that WUAs learn the
essential principles of water use planning, even if they get the
requisite calculations done by technical people they may consult
or employ. Only then can the minor level WUAs and their functioning
prepare their representatives in higher bodies to participate in
project level planning of water allocation and use. Water resource
literacy becomes a pre-condition for informed participation of the
users.
Motivation and the
different `why’s
The central issue here is motivation. At present, the way most WUAs
are constituted, and especially in the legislative strategy, the
transfer represents more a transfer of implementation of a water
use plan rather than water use planning itself. But to involve oneself
in the planning process implies that there is sufficient motivation
for farmers to participate in the process. If they are viewed mainly
as implementers rather than planners, and trained as such, there
will correspondingly be little motivation for them to take on tasks
that call for larger objectives. For example, participation in water
use planning only makes sense if there is a motivation to save water,
to distribute it more equitably, to utilise it more productively,
to provide greater assurance of supply, closer control over the
timing and the quantum of water application. But all these matters
as objectives seem often to be constants unrelated to PIM specifically.
This brings us to the question of the different answers to the question:
why PIM?
It has often been found that issues like volumetric supply and pricing
are regretfully put aside as impractical without really going deeper
into the issues. This is mostly related to a difference in degrees
of emphasis on different issues, but it also has an undercurrent
of the different kinds of answers to the question `why PIM?’
While there is a wide consensus emerging now that PIM is indeed
desirable and necessary, there are often different answers to the
question of why, and these may be quite varied. One of the underlying
answers is that PIM is a convenience measure, of shedding the burden
of a loss making sector and its responsibility! Another is that
it is a governance issue and PIM is a means of greater and more
democratic governance. Another is that it ensures that everybody
in the command area gets water. Another is that it is a means of
improving performance. Yet another is that it is all that, but above
all it is an opportunity and means of water sector reform.
Many of these answers overlap and they are not all mutually exclusive
and any given viewpoint probably has many such answers with different
emphases. In what follows, a broad distinction shall be made between
two groups of answers. One group of answers sees it mainly as a
transfer of the irrigation command from the hands of the department
to the hands of the farmers, treats this transfer as the main objective
and the benefits then flow from that transfer. Another group of
answers does acknowledge this transfer, but treats that transfer
also additionally as a means or instrument of restructuring the
water sector improving its performance, ensuring equitable water
access and allowing a transition to a sustainable and integrated
management and use of water resources.
In short, for the purposes of this paper, the former group of answers
may be called the transfer viewpoint and the latter may be called
the restructuring viewpoint. While there is a great area of concurrence
between them, they may differ greatly in the degree of emphasis
they may place on different measures. And the issue just discussed,
that of volumetric supply, is a case in point. The restructuring
viewpoint treats it as an essential component of PIM activity because
without it the nature of the stake that the farmer holds does not
change and what takes place in the absence of it is a simple transfer
without the desired restructuring. These two broad groups of answers
may help explain many of the points of concurrence as well as the
differences between the different measures and analyses that flow
from them.
Need for motivation
in the legislative strategy
Productivity
issues
One set of motivation for participation of farmers in irrigation
sector, or PIM, comes from productivity and efficiency considerations
as PIM is meant to improve efficiency of irrigation, ensure economic
use of water and increase both productivity and total production.
To achieve this, the available water in a project needs to be allocated
to all the farmers in the service area of that project on an equitable
basis. Also, water deliveries need to be organised and made with
reliability and predictability so that the farmers can plan their
crops properly. Experience shows that allocation of water to all
the farmers equitably leads to sustainability; and reliability and
predictability in supply will induce the farmers to take high risk
crops and invest more on better seeds, fertilisers and pest control
measures, thus leading to increase in productivity. For this purpose
the farmers (or farmers’ organisations) need to be consulted
and involved in preparing the operation plans – both annual
and seasonal -- which determine allocation of water, opening and
closing dates of canals, irrigation delta and accordingly the delivery
of water.
At the minor or distributary level the entire operation can be fully
entrusted to WUAs, so that they can prepare rules for water allocation
and crops to be grown in consultation with all the farmers, and
thereafter also monitor the deliveries so that they are in accordance
with the operation plan. The WUAs can also take on the maintenance
of the system to ensure that the canals and distribution network
carry the designed flows that lead to supply of water to all. The
WUAs can plan conjunctive use of surface and groundwater effectively
to augment the water supply from the project, increase the frequency
of irrigation and area of irrigation and minimise danger of water
logging and salinity.
Gradually the entire operation of canals and maintenance of the
system could be handed over to the Federation and Apex organisations
at project level. At present, the farmers may not have the requisite
expertise, technical know-how and equipment to undertake repairs
of major canals and hence the major canals need to be retained with
irrigation/water resources department. However, as the water is
to be used by the farmers, the equitable allocation of water to
different parts of the system and sub-network of the canal command
and the periods of supply need to be decided by the Apex/Project
organisation, that is, virtually by all the farmers in the command.
At present all the canals in India are designed with the principle
of upstream control and the systems are designed and operated on
supply basis. Installation of down stream control/constant volume
control between cross regulators can be done gradually and the system
can be changed to demand based system wherein the quota or volume
of water can be allocated equitably to the minors/distributaries.
Thereafter the WUAs would be able to draw water with any frequency
or period that their cropping pattern may demand according to crop
water requirements. The canals should be able to store water if
not required by any WUA, and the response time for the water to
reach the tail ends of the project service area should be minimised.
The apex or project level organisation can then monitor and keep
account of the actual water withdrawals by different WUAs.
Equity issues
Equity is not a fixed concept and there are many levels at which
it may operate. For example, to hold that every piece of land within
the command should get access to water is one level at which it
may be defined. Starting from this simplest form, there are many
other levels at which the issue may be posed, for example, that
everyone in the command should have access to minimum water irrespective
of his/her holding, that women in particular should have access
to water, etc. These different issues are taken up below.
Equity `within the command’
and the tail enders and other deprived
The concept of equity within the command is the simplest form of
the concept. It states that every piece of land in the command is
entitled to an equitable share of water, usually a share of water
proportional to its area. It is a right that attaches itself to
land and not to individuals who hold land. This is in conformity
with the logic of commodities and private property as commodity
where prices and rights to social product attach themselves to artefacts
and not to the human beings who use, produce and/or consume them.
In this simplest form it forms the area of minimum concurrence between
the transfer and restructuring viewpoints. This is essentially also
the problem that has been identified as the problem of the tail
enders and other deprived within irrigation commands.
There are many factors involved in ensuring equity within the command.
One of the first is the issue of adequate rehabilitation of the
system before transfer takes place. Without adequate rehabilitation
it cannot be ensured that water will reach all portions of the command.
(This discussion is mainly confined to systems that do not have
a fixed proportional distribution system.) This is a vexed question.
While it has been argued that there should be no transfer until
adequate rehabilitation is carried out, it is also feared that this
would delay transfer indefinitely and may lead to a loss of momentum
and motivation, and hence in many places transfer has been accepted
without full rehabilitation. Experience has shown that residual
work is often not carried out and farmers are dissatisfied with
the rehabilitation work. This points to a need to ensure that adequate
amount of rehabilitation work is completed before transfer takes
place.
Another factor is the populist increase in command area of many
systems beyond what the system can adequately handle. [4]Sometimes
the inflow patterns into the storage dam have been changing adversely
due to upstream developments. But very often it is system management
that is responsible for a large part of the problem. A tail to head
schedule of delivery is often to be favoured, but it has been shown
elsewhere that whichever schedule is designed, the question is that
of sticking to it, of enforcing discipline and resisting the pressures
of the more powerful situated mostly in the head reach. Political
will and the ability to withstand the pressures from the head reach
and enforce discipline is an important requirement. Thus it needs
to be emphasised that a strong commitment to equity must be part
of the PIM motivation and organisation even if the minimum concept
of equity (the concept that forms the broad area of agreement between
the transfer and the restructuring viewpoints) is to be assured.
Sharing of shortages
Sharing of shortages is another context in which ideas about equity
begin to play an important role.[5]
For example, even if we grant that in the normal situation, equity
means access to water proportional to landholding in the command,
a discussion of how to distribute water when there are significant
shortages uncovers a wide range of notions of equity that are immanent
in the farmers’ minds. For example, in many areas of Rajasthan,
farmers make a rule that first priority is to supply every farmer
with one bigha of irrigation, and only after that will other land
receive water. In some areas farmers have accepted that those with
smaller holdings will receive a higher proportion of area irrigated
when there are shortages.
The important point here is to make explicit the concept that is
implicit in many of these notions. That is the concept of a minimum
water assurance to people rather than strict proportionality according
to holding. This does not mean or imply that all farmers will accept
a similar notion of this concept. For example, the two cases cited
above are fairly different in practice. PIM practice today does
not give sufficient attention to these notions. They need to be
made explicit, discussed and built upon.
Minimum
water assurance as a right
The notion uncovered in the discussion around shortages, that of
minimum water assurance, has a relevance that is much wider. However,
it also marks a point of divergence between the transfer viewpoint
and the restructuring viewpoint. The restructuring viewpoint sees
minimum water assurance for people (not the land) as part of a rights
framework, that is, it sees it as a right that vests in people and
not in their property. This is also the basis of Pani Panchayat
work (in Pune district, Maharashtra) as it is of the movements for
equitable water access in South Maharashtra, where water rights
are not seen as tied to land rights and as realisable through them.
This dissociation of land and water rights and the complexity it
involves often makes portions of the restructuring viewpoint appear
either unintelligible or unpractical from a transfer viewpoint.
The restructuring viewpoint thus sees PIM as more than mere transfer
and attempts to build in measures within PIM that will leave sufficient
space for transition to a system with high performance, equitable
access to water, and sustainable and integrated use and management
of water resources. There is a need to give this aspect much more
thought and weightage.
Gender
issues
At present gender is a dimension that is now routinely added on
as a component to most programmes, partly because women’s
movements and struggles have made a mark and equally because many
funders have come to insist on its inclusion. For these reasons,
PIM programmes now have a gender component and at least they discuss
and attempt to create awareness about the general disadvantages
under which women labour. However, there is very little serious
thought given to involving women in PIM activity [6]
and to theoretical treatment of how and what stake women
hold in PIM. This tends to reduce genuine concern to lip service.
The lack of serious thought ranges from the very simple things like
the timings of PIM meetings that are planned without thought to
whether the scheduled time and venue are suitable for women or not.
It extends to the issue of whether women are to be treated as coparcenaries
of the land held in the command. Experience of organisations like
the AKRSP shows that women can and have taken an active lead not
only in routine PIM activity but also in actively re-shaping crop
patterns and practices along more sustainable lines.
There are two issues here. One is to recognise women as equal stakeholders
in the PIM process. For this one has to necessarily delink formal
ownership from stake holding, something we shall come up against
in respect of the landless as well and not accidentally, since women
do constitute the largest section of the formally landless. This
implies giving women a full stake in PIM on par with the men folk,
an equal voice and an equal participation in decision-making. This
is unlikely to happen except in areas with exceptionally progressively
oriented PIM organisations and support agencies.
Here again we need to make a beginning with something that can establish
a minimum acceptable level of participation for women without foreclosing
options of further participation. One of the ways of doing this
is through mandatory associate membership for the women in the WUAs,
associate members who have full voice, but not necessarily decision
making power, with an explicit provision that says that additional
rights may be conferred by the WUAs on its associate members including
raising their status to full members. Further, there should be a
provision for women to be included in the executive committees at
the various levels of representation beginning with the executive
bodies of the minor level WUAs. Apart from these provisions which
create a space for democratic participation there is need to make
provisions whereby independent water entitlements could be given
to women's collectives from the water allocation for the WUAs.[7]
Other deprived and excluded
stakeholders
There are many other persons who are stakeholders -- either directly
or indirectly -- in the irrigation commands. Irrigation enters an
area in many ways, not only through the service it provides to those
in the designated command areas. The administrative boundaries set
between the irrigation command and its surroundings and environs
is provisional and there are many processes that do not respect
such boundaries. Losses from the system appear in drainage channels
and as recharge in wells, it may provide sustenance for cattle and
drinking water for humans, it may remove or even cause health problems
in an area.
There is here the question of recognising many of these interests
as stakeholders in irrigation and hence as part of the PIM process.
There is an implicit principle involved here and that is that `participation’
in PIM implies participation not simply of `beneficiaries’
but of stakeholders. It then becomes important that the process
ensures participation of the other deprived and excluded stakeholders.
Typically this would imply the participation of landless as well
as the representatives of the local panchayats or wards.
Here again it would be best at this initial stage to designate the
villages or the panchayat bodies and ensure representation of landless
and the panchayat bodies on the executive bodies at various levels.
The important point is to start with a structure that retains majority
decision-making power with the beneficiaries in the designated commands,
even while ensuring sufficient representation for the other stakeholders
to see to it that their voice is heard and given serious thought
even in cases where it is overruled.
Legislating
equity versus creating space and enabling provisions
What emerges out of this discussion is that there cannot be a static
concept of equity. Recognising the dynamism of the physical and
social system, the role of the PIM legislation can only be that
of providing an enabling framework for different equity options
to evolve and sustain. To put it differently, the PIM legislation
at the most can open up space for contestation of different interests
and claims, including that of the landless and women, and come to
an `acceptable' solution.
It is often thought that insistence on equity implies a demand for
legislation or enforcement of equity. Though it is sometimes possible
to legislate protective measures like minimum wage where there is
a greater degree of uniformity of context, it is difficult to legislate
for equitable arrangements that can be as diverse as the contexts
in which they occur. Moreover, though such measures may be necessary,
it is often found that they suffer from a peculiar paradox, in that
they may need the political strength to enforce the legislation
that was enacted precisely because they lacked that strength! Thus
the legislated minimum wage may turn into a maximum wage because
the legislation assures that no one need offer more; or a legislated
maximum pollution level may turn into an assured minimum pollution
level because no one need bring it down any further!!
The point is not that such legislation is superfluous or positively
harmful, but that there is a need to change the way of looking at
this legislation. Thus both the minimum wage legislation and maximum
pollution level legislation need be seen not as automatically enforced
legislation but as creating space and enabling those who are adversely
affected to organise, gain strength and progressively enforce the
provisions. In fact, after the affected groups use those provisions
to acquire adequate strength, it may become superfluous, or may
lie on the statute books only for the unlikely situation in which
their social strength again falls below that threshold.
A similar misconception is prevalent about forcing concepts of equity
on people, in the context of PIM, on farmers. Here too there is
a need for a similar approach. There are umpteen examples all over
the country that indicate that if issues of what social and institutional
arrangements should be made are raised before stakes are acquired
on large scale, patiently explained and those adversely affected
are given adequate support, farmers do work out equitable arrangements.
These arrangements may not correspond to stock notions of equity,
but in the context of the movement from where they were to where
they finally arrive, they often constitute a significant step in
the direction of greater equity. Earlier the whole question of unequal
access to water used to go uncontested – but PIM in the mode
of restructuring could open up steps for contestation.
For this however, there is a need for a greater awareness of this
issue, inclusion of methods of tackling such issues in the training
programmes and the tenacity and patience to pursue the issue and
keep it alive even while leaving the farmer community free to make
their own choice. This works for many issues in which there are
concerns involved that may not arise spontaneously within the community.
One such issue is that of conjunctive use, where this kind of patient
and tenacious intervention on the part of Samaj Parivartan Kendra
(SPK) and SOPPECOM has led to positive results in the Ozar WUAs.
Bridging the `what is’ and the `what should be’
The above viewpoint implies that at the minimum, if PIM legislation
does not include positive enabling legislation, at least it should
not foreclose options that may become acceptable in the near future.
For example, provisions that take `what is’ as given and absolute
and include them as part of the legislation may function as foreclosing
options that may be better, more equitable and more sustainable.
This is best illustrated through an example. Take for example, the
situation common to Atpadi taluka and the Chikotra valley (both
in south Maharashtra). In both places, there are movements that
do not treat the conventional command as their operational unit.
More specifically, they treat the water allocation for an area (the
Atpadi taluka and the Chikotra valley) as the water that has to
be allocated on the basis of population to all the villages (in
the taluka or in the valley) rather than in the command as officially
designated. Let us for the time being set aside the issue of whether
and how far this is possible, because the issue that is being raised
is a little different. If now the legislation enacted defines a
beneficiary as a person who holds land in the command designated
according to conventional methods of determining an irrigation command,
it would foreclose much of the experimentation and exploration of
alternative arrangements that would ensure a more equitable access.
There are serious issues involved here and also serious difficulties,
and both need to be acknowledged. There is an obvious need to start
with existing relations and existing commands and existing beneficiaries.
This is a simple and evident point. There is indeed nothing wrong
with defining beneficiary as described above. However, it should
not result in the foreclosure of more progressive and better options.
The definitions incorporating `what is’ should not foreclose
options of `what should be’.
One of the ways in which this may be done is to leave a provision
that allows associations or groups that include beneficiaries so
described to redefine themselves as beneficiaries. Thus farmers
who may not be served by an irrigation project may combine with
the beneficiaries to form a larger group that may be allowed to
take over the allocation of that specified group of beneficiaries.
This leaves sufficient space for voluntary reorganisation and encourages
exploration of more efficient, equitable and sustainable options.
The present `Maharashtra Management of Irrigation Systems by Farmers
Act (Draft), 2003 (and this is true with all the participatory Irrigation
management acts in other states too) is based exclusively on a transfer
viewpoint and its ills flow from that viewpoint. There is an urgent
need to reconsider that legislation from this angle.
Conjunctive
use
There are at least two different senses in which conjunctive use
of water resources is important. The first is in the sense of conjunctive
use of surface (read canal water or water drawn from surface storages)
water and groundwater; and the second in the sense of local and
exogenous water, especially in large and medium projects. The issues
involved here are also accordingly different.
The issue of conjunctive use of groundwater is first of all the
recognition that it does take place and takes place in an unregulated
manner. At present losses and leakages from the system are picked
up either through tail discharges or through seepages and recharge
in wells, but this is done in an unregulated manner and without
generating any revenue for the water thus used. This is a kind of
free riding being practised that makes neither for efficiency nor
for revenue. In fact the Maharashtra study of the deprivation and
tail ender problem in irrigation commands clearly brings out the
need to bring the wells in the commands under the jurisdiction of
the WUAs.
In this context, there is a need to empower WUAs to regulate conjunctive
use of water, especially in situations where volumetric supply and
pricing are in force. This will allow the WUAs to take steps to
regulate free riding, add to its revenues and increase water use
efficiency. In combination with the other sense of conjunctive use,
it would be possible in many places for WUAs to use local systems
as buffer storages in order to increase the timeliness and frequency
of delivery.
An argument is often made that local water resource development,
read watershed development, which is the form it nowadays takes,
should be cleanly and fully separated from canal irrigation. There
is sufficient scope to argue that in most cases a combination of
the two can deploy synergies that might otherwise not be possible
and will add value to both, canal irrigation as well as watershed
development benefit. In fact, there is scope to even go further
and argue for a wider dispersal of canal irrigation water and its
integration with local water systems to create livelihood assurance
over a much larger area than is possible presently with either alone.
Pro-active incentives
In some sense many of the steps described above are reactive or
protective in nature, they just assure a minimum space and provide
enabling and empowering measures that are of help only if a pro-active
PIM group is already existing. For any such group it provides crucial
space and confers enabling powers. However, there is also a need
to actively encourage those PIM groups who do take up these issues
in a pro-active manner. There should be some kind of incentives
built into the PIM structure that rewards those who do so.
The problem of incentives is simpler to handle in the bottom-up
strategy that does not rely on legislation. In fact, in Maharashtra,
the simple expedient of a policy in which WUAs received water with
higher priority than non-WUA areas has acted as good incentive towards
PIM in many cases.[8] In general,
in a motivational strategy it is easier to structure incentives.
Things change as soon as we come to the legislative, top-down strategy.
Since by statute all areas are now WUA areas (that being the point
of the legislation), it is difficult to build in incentives. Nevertheless,
it may be suggested that WUAs who show good performance and take
successfully pro-active steps towards ensuring equitable access,
increased efficiency and sustainability should be conferred some
relative advantage in water allocation and/or water rates. The social
benefit of such measures often far exceeds the small relative advantage
that may have to be conferred on such action.
Training
and capability building
Whether it is the top-down or the bottom-up approach PIM experience
tells us that unless training and capability building of the WUAs
is done, very little can be achieved in terms of success. For improving
irrigation efficiency it is necessary for the WUAs to be equipped
with some basic understanding regarding crop-water requirements,
water balance models. Water resource literacy therefore becomes
critical for the optimum use of the resource.
Similarly, democratic functioning of the WUAs is another area where
training is essential. Evolving rules for water sharing, decision-making,
record keeping, etc., are all crucial for the sustenance of the
PIM institutions as well as for enhanced participation of the users.
In the context of equity too training provides critical inputs.
As we discussed earlier, the concept of equity varies with the context.
However, providing information of different equity options in different
contexts (and actual experiences of local communities working out
different options) would equip the beneficiaries to make informed
choices in their own situations. Providing examples through training
of what works and what does not will facilitate the WUAs to make
appropriate choices.
Making a transition to the volumetric supply system is no mean task.
It calls for a new set of rules in water use, planning and sharing.
Here training would be necessary in areas ranging from the very
basic operational aspect of monitoring flows to improved techniques
in cropping.
Towards PIWRM
and MSPs
Ultimately, the measures that the restructuring viewpoint puts forward
together make sense only when seen from the vantage point of where
they want to reach. To give it a name, tentatively, it may be called
Participatory and Integrated Water Resource Management (PIWRM).
This comes from the recognition, first, that irrigation is not the
only water use of importance, second, that various kinds of water
use cannot in fact be isolated from each other, and third, that
it is necessary to integrate irrigation into the overall water use
and vice versa. To move towards PIWRM, we need to go beyond the
turnover framework of PIM framework and the institutional forms
like the WUAs based on such frameworks. One of the options that
is being tried out (or debated about) is the multi-stakeholder platforms
(MSPs) in which all the direct and indirect stakeholders come together
and function within the framework of deliberative democracy.
From this perspective, PIM must be seen as a partial initiative,
ultimately merging with PIWRM and the wider MSP processes as different
participative initiatives converge from different directions, and
as different bodies coalesce and expand to include different uses
and associated stakeholders. Only this arrival point explains the
need for a flexible approach, one that recognises the needs and
exigencies of the present without being bound by them and that provides
sufficient space and enabling provisions to help it along in this
direction.
Summing up
Participatory Irrigation Management is here to stay. However the
experience of PIM has been varied across the country. Achievement
of the professed goals has depended on a variety of factors important
among them being the strategy or the approach followed by the state.
Looking at the experience of PIM in India we see the emergence of
two kinds of strategies -- the motivational strategy (bottom-up
approach) and the legislative strategy (top-down approach). It has
largely been seen that the bottom-up approach adopted by states
like Maharashtra and Gujarat have shown positive results in terms
of achieving the wider goals of PIM (though limited in its reach)
as compared to some other states where the approach has largely
been top-down.
The workshop needs to critically look at the achievements of PIM
experience in the context of the above mentioned approaches. This
exercise would help identify the obstacles in translating goals
of PIM like improved irrigation efficiency, equitable access, sustainable
use, decentralised governance and cost recovery into reality. The
workshop could also discuss some of the critical factors and conditions
like enabling legislative framework to ensure equitable access and
enhanced irrigation efficiency, transition to volumetric supply
and pricing system, and training and capability building which would
have a bearing on the outcome of PIM. Also the workshop could help
in charting out a course of action for the transition to PIWRM and
the present PIM institutions like the WUAs into a wider process
of multi-stake holder platforms.
As mentioned right at the outset, this paper provides only an overview
of the issues involved, which need further deliberation to strengthen
PIM processes in the country. The case study papers from Karnataka,
Andhra Pradesh, Maharashtra, Gujarat and Madhya Pradesh are expected
to capture some of the real-world experiences and provide flesh
and blood to the various issues outlined in this paper. Finally
the paper on the experience of Ozar WUAs titled "The Ozar Water
User Societies: Impact of Society Formation and Co-management of
Surface Water and Groundwater" could show us the way ahead
– of moving from mere turnover viewpoint to making PIM a vehicle
for restructuring water sector in more integrated and sustainable
lines.
| [1] |
The issue of the practicality of
volumetric supply is a much misunderstood issue and there
is a need to clarify the practical and technical issues involved.
This has been done in an accompanying paper. |
| [2] |
For details refer to the report,
“Study of tailender and other deprived in irrigation
commands” (2003). |
| [3] |
For example in the case of Ozar
WUAs they have used hours as a proxy for volumetric supply
and pricing. For details see the report, “Co-management
of surface water and groundwater: The case of the Ozar WUAs”
(2003). |
| [4] |
The Tamil Nadu case study of the
"Tailender and other deprived in irrigation commands"
discusses this issue in detail. |
| [5] |
Very often the absence of a framework
for sharing shortages is at the root of most of water-related
conflicts especially water sharing of inter-state rivers.
The conflicts around Cauvery is a case in point. |
| [6] |
Of course there are isolated cases
of women's involvement reported from states like Gujarat,
Orissa, etc. |
| [7] |
This is similar to what SOPPECOM
has proposed as amendment to "Maharashtra Farmers Participatory
Irrigation Management Act (Draft), 2002". For details
refer to SOPPECOM document, "Creating Space for Women
and Landless: Suggested Modifications in the Draft Participatory
Irrigation Management Act, 2002". The draft Act is now
re-named as "The Maharashtra Management of Irrigation
Systems by Farmers Act, 2003". |
| [8] |
Khudawadi (Osmanabad district)
WUA at the tailend of Bori medium project was given priority
allocation of irrigation water even in a drought year where
most of the water in the reservoir was reserved for drinking
water purposes. The Superintend Engineer allocated the scarce
water to Khudawadi village because the people in the village
formed a WUA. |
|
|
