Beneficiary Participation in Irrigation Water Management: The Kerala

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6. Measures of Reform After having identified the possible reasons for the failure of BFAs, we may now deliberate on the possibilities of improving their working, based on the views obtained from our respondents, the documentary evidence obtained from BFAs, CCs, and CADA officials and our own field observations. Legal support The Central CADA Act, 1976, and the Kerala Act of 1986 stipulate that legal action on malpractices be initiated by officials of CADA, by reporting such instances to police, who, in turn, would take steps to punish the guilty. The acts passed by the various other State legislatures also have this provision. In actual practice, these expectations were belied in several States. Irrigation officials promptly reported malpractices to the police; the police did not however, take appropriate action due, according to them, to reasons of limitations of men, materials, resources, and time. In some cases, in which the police did really intervene, such as in Maharashtra and Tamil Nadu, the situation went worse; fresh malpractices began to be committed allegedly with the connivance of the police, by the rich and the powerful in the rural areas. Such bitter experiences led to some re-thinking. As a result, officials of the irrigation department began to be empowered by according them legal support for taking direct action against offenders rather than reporting the cases to the police and waiting for them to take remedial action. Ren Hongzun and James E Nickum, in their paper 53 strongly advocated for better legal support to irrigation officials in China. They pointed out that China’s irrigation system lacks an organisation with authority, that many of the problems arising from malpractices are due to lack of proper authority and that none of the management organs has specific, effective authority over water-use and management and that therefore new water laws were to be promulgated. George Chakacherry also came out with the same conclusion in his study relating to Kerala irrigation water management. In Kerala, the rules remain unchanged from their 1986 position. Hence, whether to accord greater legal support to irrigation officials was a question which we posed to our respondents – farmers, irrigation officials, and bureaucrats. On the issue of the competency of the police in preventing the violation of irrigation rules in force, the response was wholesome and decisive. Nearly 95 percent of the respondents were of the view that the police was not the agency to be entrusted with cases of such malpractices. Giving more legal powers to BFAs is likely to fetch them better co-operation from all concerned, particularly from the various officials of the departments of government who had not even given a patient hearing all these years. In our interviews, more than four-fifths of the respondents supported the idea of giving BFAs the legal status necessary to take direct action against malpractices. Their demand must have been the result of the bitter experiences they had from the bureaucracy: denial of BFA demands, procedural delays, and insensitivity to farmers’ grievances. 71
To sum up: past experience of the working of BFAs has convincingly shown that the existing legal frame work, within which they function, is inadequate. The futility of depending upon the police to act against malpractices is already proved. Conferment of legal status necessary to take action against malpractices would elevate BFAs in the eyes of the farming community and CADA officials. Alternatively, judicial powers may be conferred to officials of the appropriate level in the irrigation department. Financing irrigation projects In India, the responsibility for providing irrigation facilities vested primarily with the government: construction, operation, and maintenance of the system up to the sluice / outlet level was the governments’ job. The beneficiary farmers either individually or collectively shared neither responsibility nor the cost burden. Their responsibility was confined to constructing field channels, their maintenance, and allocation of water among beneficiaries. Such an approach resulted in the virtual alienation of farmers from the projects and inculcation in them of a feeling that they have the right to get everything gratis from the public authority, they themselves having no role to play nor any burden to share. They looked up to the Department of Irrigation for all services, even for very minor repairs of channels, which they themselves could very well do locally. In several other countries active involvement of the beneficiary groups at almost all stages of construction and maintenance of irrigation is encouraged. However, capital costs are borne by government. Only the costs of maintenance of field channels, minors and distributaries fall directly on the beneficiaries. There was of course the Chinese experience of peasants contributing to capital costs where local communities constructed and maintained major and medium irrigation projects 54 . In the Philippines 55 , following the new general policy promulgated in 1977, the capital costs of irrigation projects were incurred first by the government but recovered from the beneficiaries in annual instalments spread over a period of up to 50 years. In cases where capital cost was not large, a counterpart contribution amounting to 10 percent was also required from beneficiaries. Operation and maintenance costs were met in full by the irrigation association formed before the construction began. In Nepal 56 , a contribution from beneficiaries, of 25 percent of the capital cost, (5 percent in cash in advance and 20 percent in voluntary labour contribution) were regarded prerequisites for construction of irrigation schemes. In the Indonesian case 57 , all the four models of the irrigation organisation had beneficiary participation, but in varying degrees; that in the Subak system was almost total while it was partial in the village irrigation system. There also exist cases of other nations in which capital cost, either in part or in full are incurred by irrigators. One noteworthy feature in these countries is that the farmers themselves are the owners of the irrigation systems and are responsible for maintaining them. The question of bearing the costs of irrigation projects was posed to our respondents – whether the projects should be financed exclusively by government or by government and 72
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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 and 36: Table 4.7 Details of Canal Committe
Page 37 and 38: Table 4.8 Nature of Decisions in Ca
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: The failure in the working of BFAs
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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