ABSTRACT

Irrigation Department is undermined, with probably adverse effects on productivity. (4) Water rates: The longest-running policy proposal in the irrigation business is to increase water rates. So they have been, occasionally, though much less than the increase in the average value of the crop. Neither the Irrigation Department nor the mass o f MLAs are enthusiastic about increasing water charges. Perhaps this lack o f enthusiasm is not unrelated to a fear that farmers might be unwilling to pay both the official water charge at the higher rate and the unofficial charge at a rate no lower than before. If so, increasing the water rate would mean encroaching upon the flows o f money through these alternative circuits, at cost to officers and politicians alike. (5) Maintenance: Maintenance suffers badly, and hence so do both pro­ductivity and equity, (a) EEs and AEs make poor quality controllers, because they benefit from sub-standard work, (b) But the contractor has a further incentive to do sub-standard work, because on ‘supplementary works’ done to correct first-round mistakes he gets all the profit, (c) The contracts are divided into very small units (for example, one contract might be for maintenance o f one mile, six furlongs o f a long distributory), to keep good relations with as many contractors as possible, not least because the contractors are useful agents o f the Irrigation Department in the villages for helping the AEs to raise money from the ayacut. (In other words, raising money ‘from works’ and ‘from the ayacut’ are not as distinct as the earlier discussion implied; the AE can use the promise of works to induce a contractor to help lever money ‘from the ayacut\ if need be.) Maintenance down the length o f a distributory is often badly coordinated as a result, (d) The AE is empowered to sanction rather small ‘emergency works’ in certain circumstances, and these he makes use of to achieve revenue-raising objectives, as in (c). Again, patchwork, uncoordinated maintenance is the result, (e) Between 25 and 50 per cent of the resources meant to be spent on maintenance goes elsewhere. Off the main canal, sizeable distributories may not be maintained (except perhaps to replace broken structures) for 10 to 15 years at a time. The engineers say the government must give them more maintenance money. (6) Effectiveness of new canal projects: Investigation o f new canals, the preparation o f project proposals to go for funding (perhaps to the World Bank) is being done by men whose chief aim is generally to get out o f Investigations as fast as possible. The likely effect on the quality o f project plans can readily be imagined. The quality of construction work is affected by the demand for rake-offs and lack o f quality control. Add to this the politics o f project approval-the exaggeration o f expected irrigated area and the concealment o f costs to raise the projected benefit/cost ratio high enough-and one has some of the reasons for the recurrent dismay o f economists and farmers at the ‘poor’ performance of canal irrigation projects, in addition to all the factors described above at the O & M stage.

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