Water Users Association and Irrigation Management - Institute for ...

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It can be noted from Table 7.4 that nearly 45 percent of farmers paid money to carry out 0
& M activities. Small farmers (around 56 percent) preferred contributing labor while
almost 55 percent of medium farmers contributed either money or labor. In view of the
increasing contributions in labor and in kind, the office bearers sought cash contributions,
to build the corpus fund. In relative terms, in the contribution of labor or money, the socioeconomic
status of the farmer is not an important variable for differentiation to the WUA.
The responsibility taken up by the WUA for Operation and Maintenance (O&M) has
provided an opportunity to develop technical skills among the members. This has led to
adequate capacity building within the community to handle repair and management tasks
and has created sizeable cadres of local workers familiar with minor repair works.
Infrastructure is effectively maintained by the WUA since the users have a direct stake in
better quality work. Labor contributions by users have also ensured lower cash costs of
O&M. There has been tremendous improvement in the quality of works carried out on the
distributaries by WUAs (Jairath, 200 I). Johnson's study (1997) in Mexico points out that
WUAs have proven capable of operating and maintaining the modules, even up to sizes in
excess of 50,000 hectares and water fees collected have funded most of the O&M
activities. In Turkey, when O&M responsibilities were transferred to the WUA the
operational efficiency and the maintenance of the delivery systems improved, with/the
result that the water supplies have become more predictable (Scheumann, 1997).
One farmer who contributes labor regularlv commented:
"Repairs executed by the ID are not under the supervision of skilled personnel and also the
staff tends to spend little time 011 the distributaries resulting in relatively low knowledge of
detailed maintenance needs. while minor repair works identified by the WUA can be more
efficiently carried out by us ".
The WUA ensures that contributions for providing the maintenance of a given collective
good (infrastructure) are predictably obtained from all beneficiaries through the use of
enforceable joint a/,'feements that define a fair share of contribution. And this obligation to
bear the cost is tightly interconnected with the delivery of the benefit. Hence, the WUA is
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