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

any regulatory or imposing bodies and how they become active players in creating a new
social and physical environment even when they have to operate within a context that is
partially of their own making. Further, the issues of internalizing negative externalities in the
absence of a collective action are explored.
We are trying to contrast the case of an existing WUA with that ofa no-WUA scenario. In
the former case, the WUA takes over water distribution. In the later case, control continues
to lie outside the farmers i.e., with the agency, both technically and institutionally. The
intention is to map as comprehensively as possible the set of practices, relations and the
institutions that the farmers are engaged and embedded in and how these relations have an
effect not only on the resource used but also on the immediate physical environment.
Tungabhadra irrigation project
The Tungabhadra Project (TBP), a large-scale irrigation system is constructed in the
Raichur district of Karnataka and is functioning since 1953. It was initiated to protect rain
fed crops and population in this area against drought and famines. The irrigation method
used is the gravity surface system and water is used for irrigation, drinking and sanitation.
Tungabhadra command encompasses 597 villages and roughly II lakh people are
dependent on this project, which is intended to irrigate an area of 3.63 lakh hectares in the
drought prone areas of Raichur, Koppal and Bellary districts of Karnataka state and 1.49
lakh hectares in Anantpur, Cuddapah and Kurnool districts of Andhra Pradesh. Hence, this
is an interstate project of the Government of Karnataka and the Government of Andhra
Pradesh. The salient features ofTBP are presented in the Appendix-3.1.
Tungabhadra Project is a "protective irrigation" system. This means that the water supplies
are very limited and do not permit irrigation of all the land with a full crop requirement,
neither in Kharif 4 nor in Rabi 5 This is realized by localizing the area, which means that in
certain areas only certain crops may be grown. On the basis of the localized cropping
pattern, the target flows for the canals and outlets are determined. Hence, the emphasis is
on the cultivation of light irrigated crops like cotton, maize, jowar, sorghum, ragi, bajra,
4 First season of the agricultural year. Mungaaru in Kannada.
5 Second season of the agricultural year. Hingaaru in Kannada.
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