ABSTRACT

experience with the project suggested he could proceed faster than could an older EE brought in from outside.16. My guess is that on the coastal deltas the EE commonly is more actively involved in raising money from the ayacut, and that he has more direct ways of sharing in it than is the case on upland canals. If so, this might help explain why delta posts tend to be more ‘expensive’ (see below).17. Biplab Dasgupta suggests (personal communication) that in many West Bengal villages such village-wide organisation would be difficult to achieve because of the greater degree of class-based organisation within villages than is normally the case in our state.18. Occasionally incautious contractors are caught with huge sums of money on their hands, and such incidents may get small bylines in the press. For example, on 19 July 1980, The Hindu noted that the Income Tax Department had seized Rs.34 lakh from the residence of a contractor who owed even more in income tax arrears, plus another R s.l^ lakh from the residence of a clerk of a private engineering college which bore the same name as the name of the contractor (the contractor comes from an adjacent state where private colleges have been permitted). I thank Jeremy Jackson for this reference.19. These factors are relevant to variation over time and place within any canal command area. There is also variation between canals, especially between canals on the uplands and on the coastal deltas. Delta farmers tend to be prepared to pay more. When delta farmers come to the uplands (buying a bigger area with the proceeds of the sale of their delta land) they continue to be more willing to pay the irrigation staff-they become the ‘price leaders’.A further qualification: Although the zoning of land for irrigation (‘localisation’) is intended to be once-and-for-all, some flexibility is permitted-villages can have their water rights changed. Such desired changes may well have to be paid for, and obtaining them may entail several trips by village representatives to the state capital, as well as to the Division and Sub-division offices. Their price would normally be several times the price of a one-season assurance; and even if the villagers are prepared to pay this sort of amount their request may not be granted.20. The cross-bund increases the discharge through the sluice, thus reducing what is available for lower-down sluices.21. This case occurred in 1977. The village was near a tail-end, so could be easily discriminated against; it had few families of the dominant caste of the region; and was clearly in the poorest quarter of villages in the district.22. He actually said that rumour-mongering is one of the tricks of being a field staffer (banker or foreman); senior engineers are quite prepared to admit, in general terms, that the ‘lower down fellows’ accept bribes.23. If the farmers lose confidence in the willingness or ability of a Supervisor or AE to deliver on promises, and also think him ‘weak kneed’, they will be more likely to resort to breaking the structures, by-passing the irrigation hierarchy. This checks the extent to which the officers can promise without delivering.24. One engineer said there is what he called a ‘vicious circle’ between engineers and politicians: ‘The engineer gives more water to the lands of a politician, that fellow obliges at the time of transfer’.25. Assume conservatively that the wet season paddy area, about 160,000 acres or so, pays 1 kg/ac, and assume, as in the village where I lived, that each village gives about one-third to the Supervisor and AE, and two-thirds to the foremen and bankers who directly serve it. Then over the whole canal, if the 330 or so field staff divide the collections equally, they will each get about 320 kgs of paddy (which can be roughly valued at Rs. 1.2 per kg), compared to a monthly salary of between Rs.300 and 700. Each Supervisor and AE will get roughly 2,000 kg (if they share equally-in practice the AE would get more, the Supervisor less), compared to an AE’s average monthly salary of about Rs. 1,900, and less for Supervisor. The plausibility of the assumptions is strengthened by the absence of rags-to-riches stories amongst field staff, and by the fact that the grain payments do not arouse anything like the same resentment amongst farmers that the money payments sometimes do (depending on what the payments are for, as well as on their level). In the dry season the grain payments are less common, less institutionalised, more at the discretion of individual households; and more of the dry season irrigated area is under non-food crops.26. Rs.2,400,000 x 5% x 25% (to reduce to a Sub-division basis) x 50%.

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