Beneficiary Participation in Irrigation Water Management: The Kerala

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The CADA activities like field channel lining, its construction, and minor repair of the canal net work were then hurriedly pushed through in order to achieve full utilisation of the allotted funds. The minutes of CC meetings show that attendance was the highest in meetings in which CC Chairman and PAC member were elected. The practice of holding monthly meetings of canal committees on fixed dates, places, and time already decided upon, i.e., the second friday of every month, enabled members to plan in advance for participating in the meetings. Yet, it was found that attendance of BFA members in CC meetings was thin. It is observed that the interest on the part of members to participate in CC meetings has declined over time. Attendance was the highest in the CC meeting in which election of CC Chairman and PAC member was conducted. Thereafter, after a few CC meetings their interest is found to have withered most of them tending not to respond to invitations from engineers. Differing explanations are offered for the withering of interest which we shall examine presently. There are, at the same time, indications to suggest that the BFAs would participate in CCs, which they feel are of vital interest to them, meetings which deliberate on things that would yield some benefits directly 39 . Twenty-nine out of the total of 57 CC meetings were those summoned by Kottayi-Peringottu Kurissi Committee. Only three meetings of this committee had the quorum for transacting business; two meetings were held without quorum and 24 with zero-attendance of non-official members. As regards Kannadi-Odannur CC and Kannannur-Pulinelli CC only four committee meetings each were held during a span of seven years, whereas Erimayur CC and Kunnisseri CC had seven CC meetings each to their credit during the span of two years. In terms of zeroattendance, these committees scored, however, fewer points than Kottayi-Peringottu Kurissi committee. CCs formed after 1994, for the right bank canal, have done better than those formed prior to 1994. This is because government gave considerable stress to the formation and successful functioning of BFAs, as a major measure of decentralisation, from 1994 onwards. Reportedly, better awareness has been created among the irrigation officials and other CADA personnel on the necessity of enlisting better beneficiary involvement in the every day operation and management of irrigation projects, major, medium, and minor. Table 4.8 gives details of the decisions, taken by canal committees. They are broadly grouped into five categories. We have noted earlier that 43 CC meetings out of 57 were held without the necessary quorum to take any valid and meaningful decisions. Yet, it is seen from the minutes of the CC meetings that major decisions like fixing the dates for releasing canal water for irrigation, and action to be taken for rectifying structural defects, were taken. This evidence illustrates the extent to which the canal committees remained, in fact, paralysed and inactive. Altogether 29 decisions were found to have been taken in these CC meetings. Most decisions related to commencement and duration of water supply (in the majority of cases regarding extension of the period of water supply) followed by “rectifications of structural defects” and action against malpractices, in that order. There were only three decisions on crop 37
Table 4.8 Nature of Decisions in Canal Committees ( Category-wise Details) 38
Page 1 and 2: Beneficiary Participation in Irriga
Page 3 and 4: Contents 1 Introduction 5 2 Concept
Page 5 and 6: No serious in-depth study of the ca
Page 7 and 8: The Malampuzha project has 15 Canal
Page 9 and 10: 2. Concepts, Theory, and Practice o
Page 11 and 12: of a few man-days of labour as is s
Page 13 and 14: 3. Empirical Research on Irrigation
Page 15 and 16: Our interest is neither in the Prod
Page 17 and 18: The author points out how the press
Page 19 and 20: field level officers resemble the c
Page 21 and 22: fields and project demonstration fa
Page 23 and 24: To ameliorate the situation, the Eg
Page 25 and 26: development factors and processes,
Page 27 and 28: Canal Committee (CC) Canal Committe
Page 29 and 30: This fact was endorsed by both offi
Page 31 and 32: Renewal is given based on the lists
Page 33 and 34: Table 4.6 Details of General Body M
Page 35: Table 4.7 Details of Canal Committe
Page 39 and 40: ecause of their vital importance to
Page 41 and 42: of the office-bearers and more than
Page 43 and 44: Table 4.13a Performance of Recurrin
Page 45 and 46: Table 4.13 c Performance of Recurri
Page 47 and 48: inclusion of ineligible persons in
Page 49 and 50: aspect. The reasons reported for in
Page 51 and 52: Table 4.14c Performance of Recurrin
Page 53 and 54: all farmers in an area did this act
Page 55 and 56: Table 4.15a Performance of Recurrin
Page 57 and 58: Table 4.15c Performance of Recurrin
Page 59 and 60: 5. Performance, Administration, and
Page 61 and 62: level of less than one-third [Table
Page 63 and 64: management function, with an expert
Page 65 and 66: the critical phases of growth of pl
Page 67 and 68: Lack of adequate co-operation of th
Page 69 and 70: The failure in the working of BFAs
Page 71 and 72: To sum up: past experience of the w
Page 73 and 74: Table 6.1 Measures of Reforms 74
Page 75 and 76: “Extending better official co-ope
Page 77 and 78: Table 6.3 Staying in the area of op
Page 79 and 80: (ii) Entrust water charges collecti
Page 81 and 82: 7. Summary and Conclusions Most irr
Page 83 and 84: of using less cement than is requir
Page 85 and 86: Appendix - I Number of Beneficiary
Page 87 and 88:
Appendix III List of Canal Committe
Page 89 and 90:
BFA Sample’ Name of C.C/BFA Reg.
Page 91 and 92:
the assumed losses of 11 to 20 perc
Page 93 and 94:
34 The NIA was a government corpora
Page 95 and 96:
References Bagodion, Benjamin U.
Page 97:
Silva, De, N. G. R. “Involvement
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Beneficiary Participation in Irrigation Water Management: The Kerala

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