ABSTRACT
India has the world’s second largest irrigated area; major irrigation projects over the years have contributed to expanding the irrigated area. A few scholars have recently documented the larger socio-economic (Bhalla and Mukherji, 2001) and welfare impact (Perry, 2001; Shah and Kumar, 2008) of large surface irrigation projects. Private well irrigation systems have, in the last three decades, witnessed rapid growth, surpassing that of flow irrigation in its contribution to the net irrigated area (Debroy and Shah, 2003; Kumar, 2007) by virtue of massive rural electrification, heavy electricity subsidies and institutional financing for pump sets (Kumar, 2007).
