Beneficiary Participation in Irrigation Water Management: The Kerala

a pre-requisite for participating in the Integrated Programme. WUA was expected to participate
in all phases of implementation. Its special responsibilities included planning, arrangement
of labour, supervision of labour, entering into agreement with contractors and artisans,
settlement of disputes and establishment of routine maintenance programmes. The problems,
which are found associated with irrigation projects in India and Pakistan are similar 15 .
Budiman Notat Modjo (1981) describes how all-pervasive beneficiary participation was in
providing irrigation facilities in Indonesia. Irrigation projects of all types, major, medium
and small scale and ground water were subjected to all the problems and constraints common
with first generation projects. Design, construction, operation and maintenance, extension
services in water management and development of WUAs were the main activities carried
out under the On-Farm Water Management Scheme. The government, on its part, performed
the tasks of supervision, extension, and training in water management to WUAs on the lines
stipulated for BFAs in CADA Act in Kerala. Accordingly, short training courses of two to
five days’ duration were carried out in respect of WUAs and irrigation committees; the
participants in the training programme included irrigation engineers and officials of
agricultural department at all levels from the main canal to the farm level.
In a way, the brunt of the responsibility of modernisation was on farmers. WUAs had to be
formed before the construction began; the layout of the irrigation system had to be approved
by WUAs and the village chief; design had to done by a competent consultant; construction
was to be carried out by mutual work teams or contractors. If executed by contractors, they
were required to employ labour from ‘job-site farmers’ who also did the supervision under
the mutual help system.
Beneficiary participation on a large scale was achieved; the modernisation plan of the irrigation
system through decentralisation of powers from government to farmers produced good results;
and there was tangible improvement in productivity. Rice yield was reported to have increased
by 0.73 tons/ha in the wet season and 0.65 tons/ha in the dry season.
Another more exhaustive paper (Budiman Notat Modjo, 1984) presented four models of
irrigation organisation and farm water management in Indonesia: (i) the Subak irrigation
system (ii) the village irrigation system (iii) village water master irrigation scheme, and (iv)
the tertiary level of larger irrigation system. Unique practices were followed in each of
them; further, different models involved different degrees of farmer involvement. Under the
Subak system beneficiary participation is almost total; O&M of the irrigation system are
done entirely by farmers and that too quite independent of the village administration. The
Subak irrigation system had some additional objectives to be achieved such as organising
social and religious activities of its members. Thus Subak irrigation model was all-pervasive
since planning, design, and construction of the system were carried out only through mutual
assistance of farmers, while under the village irrigation system, these activities were carried
out jointly by the government and the farmers. Part of the main system and the diversion
weir was built by government and the tertiary level facilities were provided by mutual
assistance of farmers. As for the third and the fourth models are concerned, operation and
maintenance were performed more by officials than by farmers 16 .
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