Onus of canal management on farmers

By Mahesh Vijapurkar

MUMBAI, JUNE 28. Maharashtra is making management of irrigation water the responsibility of farmers. Within three years, the Government would limit itself to building dams, impounding waters and enabling its flow in the main canals. The onus of managing irrigation would be on farmers' cooperative societies.

This was the model in vogue here for six years but on a limited scale, designed and put to work on a voluntary basis by non- Governmental organisations and replicated on a very large scale by Andhra Pradesh after Mr. Chandrababu Naidu, Chief Minister, visited and studied the pattern here. Now, enthused by the success of some of the NGO-led efforts, Maharashtra will now universalise it. However, it would need massive, initial funding by a resource-starved State.

This is the next big step since the Command Area Development Department set up in 1974, saw new lands being brought under irrigation at great cost. Farmers groaning without adequate water despite entitlement would be relieved; those who cornered large shares - legally or because of their choice of crop - would, perhaps, be potential losers.

Plans announced on Wednesday said about 5,000 new societies of about 400 farmers each would be formed and water sold to them on a volumetric basis. That, in turn, would be sold by the society to its members optimally by deciding how the quota assigned to each society would be distributed among themselves. But, before the management at the distributary level is handed over, Rs. 2,500 per hectare is expected to be spent on repairing the system. Presently, 247 cooperatives with control on irrigation of 91,619 hectares are on ground with 474 in the pipeline.

Many farmers do not get their share of water, Mr. Vilasrao Deshmukh, the State Chief Minister, said, ``because others steal their share.'' Cropping patterns have changed from what was conceived when the projects were built, distorting the distribution of water into inequity now. In fact, commands have shrunk because of the shift to water-intensive crops like sugarcane and giving priority to drinking water and industrial use. ``This missing equity,'' said Mr. S.V. Sodal, secretary, Command Area Development, ``would return now.''

Once the users determine how the water is to be deployed, it would be treated more as a community asset and less as a private asset. Volumetric supply would be on the basis of the cropping pattern envisaged when each project was built and farmers would have to make do with that fixed quota. Cooperatives, then, could charge members on a per acre basis either at Government rates or whatever can be sustainable.

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