Beneficiary Participation in Irrigation Water Management: The Kerala

(ii) Entrust water charges collection with BFAs, and earmark 3 to 5 percent of the proceeds
to BFAs; and (iii) Impose an equitable area levy.
In the second phase, after having had sufficient experience in levy and collection of inputs
and after ensuring co-operation by all concerned, the following steps may be taken:
(i) Replace area levy by periodical payments;
(ii) Introduce the system of fines and penalties;
(iii) Resort to raising temporary funds to undertake minor repairs, minor renovation
schemes and rehabilitation work. The quantum of temporary funds to be levied and
the manner, in which they are to be levied, will have to be decided by the BFAs
themselves in their general body meetings convened for the purpose.
On method of organising beneficiary participation in Kerala
BFAs, the major instrument for mass participation was organised under the leadership of
CADA, the Indian counterpart for renovation and rehabilitation of existing irrigation schemes.
BFAs in Malampuzha project, partake of the features of a government-sponsored programme;
this characteristic has been a major contributory factor for its failure. Inadequate commitment
and excessive interference of the public authority are the two contrasting reasons for the
ineffective functioning of irrigation schemes in several countries 59 . An active presence of
the state is detrimental to farmer involvement 60 . Whatever be the claim of CADA officials,
the fact remains that farmers in MIP area were not organised the way and to the extent they
were expected to be organised. There was organisation on paper and a semblance of
beneficiary participation without having much truth behind.
It would be ideal if farmers themselves were able to organise BFAs. Given the socio-economic
conditions of the State, this ideal may be difficult to realise 61 . Some external agency would
have to intervene. The government is not obviously the external agency suitable for the
purpose. An appropriate NGO would be a better choice.
NGOs may not however, be without constraints of their own. NGOs are, by and large,
unable to organise farmers on a massive scale. They may be able to generate some examples
or models of organising farmers on a selective basis and demonstrate the same to others
including the irrigation department that in turn might replicate the model in a scale appropriate
to it. In brief, NGOs could be employed to organise farmers in part, but not for the whole
project or projects. The task of replication should be entrusted with a separate agency.
For choosing an appropriate method of organising farmer’s associations, one should draw
lessons from experiences elsewhere. There is at the one extreme the Chinese example of
beneficiary participation, and the experiments in the Philippines, Sri Lanka, Indonesia,
Kenya, and Malaysia, on the other.
The feeling of a large section of officials in the Irrigation Department in Kerala that irrigation
is exclusively their domain and the existence of a culture, unsuitable for organising farmers,
impedes efforts to mobilisation of beneficiaries in the study area. If this ill-conceived notion
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