African Water Laws - Natural Resources Institute

SHAH
and was orchestrated by Rajendra Singh’s Tarun Bharat Sangh. Saurashtra’s recharge movement was truly
multi-centric, unruly, spontaneous and wholly internally funded with no support from government,
international donors and the scientific community, until 1998 when the government of Gujarat piled on and
proceeded to rid the movement of its quintessentially swayambhoo and voluntary character by announcing a
subsidy program (Shah 2001; Shah and Desai 2002).
Table 1. Characteristics of Swayambhoo Water Institutions
Scale of the
institution
Economic
contribution
Fishing
contractors using
co-operatives as
fronts
Tens of thousands
of small and large
tank fishery in
India
Contributed to
achieving 7-10
fold increase in
inland fishery
productivity during
1960-2000
Raison de tre Can protect fish
better and
therefore can
invest in intensive
culture fishery
which co-ops can
not
Mode of
emergence
Strategy of
reducing
transaction
and
transformation
cost
Incentive
structure
Reverse
Osmosis
plants in North
Gujarat’s
cottage
industry
Around 300
plants in
Gujarat
Add and
operate water
treatment
capacity to
serve demand
for clean water
To profit from
serving
emerging
demand for
fluoride-free
water by
investing in
and
maintaining
RO plant
Tubewell
companies of
North Gujarat
and Gujarat’s
Public Tubewell
transfer program
Some 8-10
thousand
companies in
North Gujarat
Create irrigation
potential where
individual
farmers would
be unable to do.
To pool capital
and share risks
of tubewell
failure in
creating and
operating an
irrigation source
in an overexploited
aquifer
2-15
Urban tanker
water markets
Most Indian
cities
Fill the gap
between
demand and
supply
To profit from
supply of
water in cities
where public
institutions can
not cope with
the economic
demand
Irrigation
institutions
unfolding in the
Narmada
command
Several
thousand new
pumps
installed/year
Private
investment in
water
distribution
infrastructure;
expansion of
Narmada
irrigation
To profit by
distributing
Narmada water
by lifting water
from canals and
transporting it by
rubber pipe to
user fields
Decentralized
groundwater
recharge
movement of
Saurashtra
300,000 wells
modified for
recharge; 50,000
check dams
Improved greatly
security of kharif
crops, and
chance of a rabi
crop
Improve water
availability in
wells for lifesaving
irrigation
when monsoon
makes early
withdrawal
swayambhoo swayambhoo swayambhoo Swayambhoo Swayambhoo Swayambhoo;
catalyzed by
religious
organizations.
Instilling fear
amongst poachers
Pay-off
concentration
Cultivating
annual
customers
Pay-off
concentration
Vesting
management
roles into
members with
largest share in
command area
Pay-off
concentration
Meet the
demand as it
occurs in
flexible
manner
Pay-off
concentration
Avoid making of
sub-minors and
field channels,
reduce seepage,
overcome
topography
Pay-off
concentration
Swadhyaya
Parivar and
Swaminarayan
Sampradaya
reduced
transaction costs
of co-operative
action
Self-interest was
skillfully blended