A case for professionalization of water management in irrigation projects in India
The heavy investment in irrigation in India has not brought the expected benefits and this article argues first that a major difficulty arises from the way irrigated water is administered. The distribution of water is controlled by irrigation engineers who lack the knowledge and information to manage water in a way that maximizes agricultural production and achieves the confidence of farmers. The staffing structure and related professional values discourage the development of a new more appropriate specialism. The article goes on to argue that a new organization of work and associated staffing structure is needed which will encourage a new professional specialization bringing together staff and expertise currently dispersed in separate specialisms in engineering, agronomy and other aspects of agriculture.
Anarchy, Paternalism, or Collective Responsibility under the Canals
﻿Responsibility under the Canals ? Henry C Hart India has, for the next five years, undertaken to build 8 million hectares of medium and major canal irrigation. It" is as much as was achieved in one hundred years under the British empire. The pace of completion of canal networks, most of them from major storage reservoirs, will have to be stepped up one-third above the already accelerated pace of building in 1977-78. Utilisation of the potential created calls for field channels, for land levelling, for demonstration farms, ayacut roads, etc; in other words, for an entire new set of links between the government canals and the farmers9 fields.
Institutional Rationing of Canal Water in Northern India: Conflict between Traditional Patterns and Modern Needs
Irrigation has historically been especially important in India, with its monsoon climate. Along with the growing population pressure, the advent of the so-called green revolution has enhanced the importance of irrigation and heightened the need to use limited water resources with maximum effectiveness.' The system of rationing irrigation water directly affects the efficiency with which farmers can use water, and rationing used in largescale canal irrigation is especially important because canal irrigation comprises a major component of the total Indian irrigation system.2