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Wells and welfare in the Ganga Basin: public policy and private initiative in Eastern Uttar Pradesh, India
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"Eastern India is home to 88 million, or nearly a third of Indias rural poor. Although its industrial economy has stagnated, the region offers vast scope for accelerated development of irrigated agriculture based especially on groundwater wells. While much of South Asia suffers from acute overexploitation of groundwater resources, eastern India has over one-fourth of Indias usable groundwater resources; and less than one fifth of it is developed. Stimulating groundwater development in the region is not only central to creating livelihoods and welfare for its poor but also to addressing its syndrome of extensive waterlogging and flood-proneness. This report analyzes how public policies designed to promote groundwater development over the past 50 years have failed in their promise, and how initiative by private agents can generate the social welfare the region needs so direly. The report outlines a five-pronged strategy for attacking eastern Indias rural poverty through fuller utilization of its groundwater resources. First, eastern India needs to scrap its existing minor irrigation programs run by government bureaucracies, which gobble up funds but deliver little irrigation. Second, while the electricity-supply environment is in total disarray, innovative ideas such as decentralized retailing and metering of power and prepaid electricity cards need to be piloted as part of a broader initiative to improve the quality of power supply to agriculture. Third, programs are needed to improve the unacceptably low energy-efficiency of electric as well as diesel pumps. Fourth, there is a need to promote diesel pumps under 5-hp and improved manual irrigation technologies such as treadle pumps. Finally, above all else, east Indian States need to reform their pump subsidy schemes a la Uttar Pradesh (UP) so as to ameliorate the scarcity of pump capital that lies at the heart of the problem."
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... That said, the last two decades have seen remarkable debate on the impact of public policies relating to irrigation on the access equity in groundwater, particularly the economic impact of well irrigation on different classes of farmers in eastern India (see Shah, 1993;Saleth, 1997;Mukherji et al., 2012;Shah, 2016) which has the largest concentration of poor people in the country. A few researchers have argued that groundwater development and cheap well irrigation could trigger agricultural growth and economic prosperity (Shah, 2001;Pant 2004;Mukherji et al., 2012Shah, 2016, and sought appropriate public policies for promoting well irrigation. The focus has been on policy instruments for promoting efficient groundwater markets (Kumar, 2007). ...
... The project, which is to be completed by 2025, will improve agricultural production in the BRB in the Teesta River Basin, which is an important tributary basin of the BRB (see Supplementary S7 for details). To meet agricultural water demands while considering the spatial variation in water resources (Amarasinghe et al., 2005;Shah, 2001), India proposed the National River Linking Project (NRLP) to divert water from Jogighopa in 2006. Approximately 43 BCM of water will be transferred to the Ganges River and further transferred to the peninsular basins every year according to the NRLP (Thakkar, 2007). ...
Study region: The Brahmaputra River Basin. Study focus: The Brahmaputra River Basin (BRB) is the most environmentally fragile and politically unstable transboundary river basin in South Asia. Therefore, incorporating the environmental sector into water-energy-food system analysis is necessary to better serve water resource management in the BRB. Integrated water resources system analysis can provide more perspectives for alleviating political tension and promoting cooperation in the basin. This study proposes a modeling framework to explore the water-energy-food-environment (WEFE) nexus and analyze transboundary cooperation opportunities in the BRB. Employing the framework, we attempt to answer three questions: (1) how can we understand the relationships between various sectors and coordinate their water demands? (2) How do these relationships influence riparian countries' decisions? (3) What measures can promote the sustainable development of the BRB under climate change and water infrastructure development? New hydrological insights for the region: The results show that the trade-off curve between economic benefits and environmental costs has declining marginal value in the BRB. When environmental constraints are raised, countries are more inclined to cooperate to obtain more economic benefits. Full cooperation in the BRB increases the economic benefits and prompts riparian countries to take a greener road among the shared socioeconomic pathways (SSP126). Water resource project construction can improve the utility of water resources in a country, thus enhancing its discourse power on benefit reallocation.
Rural electrification policies in the developing world primarily focus on household power, often at the cost of electricity supply to other productive sectors of the economy. We examine the consequences of this imbalance in rural electrification policy priority on agricultural development in India. Electric pumping of groundwater for irrigation is a major driver of India’s agricultural growth. However, the government of India shifted its rural electrification focus towards universal household electrification starting early 2000s. Using a newly constructed panel-dataset spanning three decades, we find that districts electrifying after the policy change experience much lower gains in electrified groundwater irrigation. On average, electrifying 100 additional rural households is associated with an increase of two additional electrified wells among newly electrified districts – eight times lower compared to 16 electrified wells per 100 electrified households among districts electrified pre-policy change. Our estimates imply that newly electrified districts would have witnessed nearly 20% more irrigated cropland in the dry season if rural electrification policy priorities had not shifted away from agriculture. These results highlight the need to complement household electrification with powering income-generating sectors of the rural economy.
The book offers a thorough analysis of the groundwater availability and use situation in South Asia with particular focus on the regional patterns; provides a critical assessment of how over the years various public policies have impacted the access to and use of groundwater by various segments of the farming communities, particularly the equity in access to groundwater and efficiency in use for agricultural production; critically reviews the resource assessment methodologies adopted by official agencies, highlight their flaws and shows how such flaws can lead to wrong management decisions; and critically evaluates several schemes implemented in different parts of the sub-continent, some of which touted as ‘highly successful’ and some controversial, for their effectiveness in checking groundwater depletion using sound principles in water management, and shows how the past analyses of their impacts on the resource condition have been misleading and flawed. Drawing definite clues from South Asian experience, especially those from India, Pakistan and Bangladesh, and outside the region, the author presents some viable alternatives for groundwater management for the distinct socio-ecologies that exist in the sub-continent, built on strong conceptual and theoretical foundations, and discuss how they can be implemented. Finally, some policy lessons for other countries especially from Africa that are at an earlier stage in the groundwater development trajectory are provided
India’s irrigation sector is one of the largest in the world in terms of irrigated area, volume of investment and number of large dams including under construction. Besides directly helping the farmers, the significant development made in area under irrigation is also indirectly helping to control the food inflation and increase the employment opportunities and wage rate for small peasants and landless farm labourers. However, the irrigation sector has been facing a variety of problems now, some which can affect its sustainability seriously if urgent steps are not taken to improve them. Despite spending huge amount of money, some of the old issues are re-emerging albeit in different avatar. While highlighting the major issues that are being encountered by the irrigation sector in a systematic way using the available literature and data, this chapter provides the overall context and setting for the volume. A synthesis about each individual chapters included in the volume to bring connections between various chapters is also included in this chapter.
Groundwater irrigation, which accounts for over 65% of net irrigated area as of 2016–17, has become a dominant source of irrigation in Indian agriculture. Besides increasing the cropping intensity, productivity and production of crops, the intensive cultivation of crops due to timely access to groundwater irrigation increases the demand for agricultural labourers and hence water rates for those who are mostly living below poverty line. Both increased affordability of foodgrains and wage rates help the rural poor to cross the poverty barriers. Though irrigation has been used as one of the principal explanatory variables in the poverty-related studies in India, the importance of groundwater has not been recognized by the studies focusing on rural poverty. Since groundwater irrigation became a dominant source of irrigation in India and also its impact proved to be prominent in increasing the productivity and production of crops, it is likely that the impact of it on rural poverty would also be significant. In this chapter, an attempt has been made to examine the nexus between groundwater irrigation and rural poverty using state-wise cross section data covering eight time points: 1973–74, 1977–78, 1983, 1987–88, 1993–94, 1999–2000, 2004–05 and 2011–12. The results of the study show that there is a significant inverse relationship between the availability of groundwater irrigation and the percentage of rural poverty at all eight time points. States like Bihar, Madhya Pradesh, Orissa and West Bengal continue to suffer with severe poverty where the development of groundwater irrigation is very low despite substantial potentiality for expansion.
The significant role of irrigation development in land use pattern, cropping pattern, cropping intensity, production and productivity of crops has been well documented by various studies in India. However, the contributions of irrigation to agricultural output and related parameters are fervently questioned in the recent years. Since the role of irrigation in increasing the value of agricultural output has not been studied by many scholars especially using disaggregated data covering different time points, an attempt has been made in this chapter to fill this gap by using cross-sectional data for 235 Indian districts, drawn from 13 states at six time points: 1962–65, 1970–73, 1980–83, 1990–93, 2003–05 and 2005–08. Both descriptive and regression analyses have been carried out to study the relationship. Descriptive analysis shows that the difference in value of agricultural output per hectare has narrowed down between less (<30 percent), medium (30–50 percent) and high (>50 percent) irrigated districts over the years, especially after 1990–93. The univariate regression analysis carried out treating irrigation (with and without dummy as well as with and without time lag) as an independent variable and the value of agricultural output per hectare as dependent variable shows that the impact of irrigation on the value of output has declined (both irrigation coefficient and R2) over time. During 1980–83 and 1990–93, irrigation alone has explained around 50 percent of variation in agricultural output, but the same declined to about 24 percent during 2003–05 and 2005–08. Multivariate regression analysis carried out by using different yield increasing and infrastructure variables suggests that although irrigation still plays a dominant role in increasing the value of output, its value of coefficients has been declining over time. Although both univariate and multivariate regression results show a declining trend of irrigation coefficient over time, one may not be able to firmly say that the role of irrigation in determining the value of agricultural output has reduced over time, as this could have happened due to acceleration in the productivity of crops cultivated in the rainfed/less irrigated districts.
Development of groundwater irrigation (GWI) has been very impressive in India, especially after the introduction of green revolution. Area under GWI accounts for about 65% of net irrigated area in 2016–17. Though GWI provides added benefits to farmers as compared to other sources of irrigation, the continuous exploitation of groundwater of late has resulted in drastic drop in water table, salinization and quality deterioration in different parts of the country. Since groundwater contributes overwhelmingly to agricultural growth, the unrestrained exploitation of groundwater can hamper the future growth of agriculture. GWI is controlled by many factors, which are dynamic and bound to change along with the agricultural development. Therefore, one needs to understand the factors determining the groundwater development in different regions over time to understand the dynamics of groundwater use. Though many studies are available on different aspects of GWI in India, not many studies have looked at the sustainable aspects of GWI considering together major States of India. An attempt is made in this chapter to study the development as well as the factors determining GWI over time using state-wise data with a view to suggest appropriate interventions to sustain the use of groundwater.
"From a river-basin perspective, wastewater irrigation is an important form of water and nutrient reuse; however, there are important water quality, environmental, and public health considerations. This report explores the advantages and risks of urban wastewater reuse for crop production in the water-short Guanajuato river-basin in west-central Mexico, and then by a selective literature review demonstrates how common this practice is worldwide. It also evaluates several alternative water-management scenarios through application of the Interactive River Aquifer Simulation (IRAS) model, developed by Cornell University and Resource Planning Associates."
"Increasing water scarcity poses a threat to food security and safe domestic water supplies. Irrigated agriculture is a major driver in leading to water scarcity because of its high consumption of water resources. Obtaining more benefits from each drop of water consumed, especially from each drop irrigated agriculture consumes, will be key to mitigating problems of scarcity. The means of improving productivity of water are not always immediately apparent due to the complex nature of water diversions and return flows within basins. The purpose of this report is to discuss and illustrate concepts for identifying ways of improving productivity of water within basins. We applied a water accounting procedure to four subbasins in South Asia where there are perceived problems of water scarcity: Bhakra in India, Chishtian in Pakistan, Huruluwewa in northern Sri Lanka and Kirindi Oya in southern Sri Lanka. The accounting procedure identifies the quantities and productivity of various uses of water within a basin. This information is used to identify the water-saving potential, and the means of improving the productivity of the managed supplies. At Bhakra and Chishtian, there is little remaining prospect for water savings, while at Huruluwewa and Kirindi Oya, there is considerable opportunity for water savings and increasing beneficial use. At Chishtian, almost all water is consumed by beneficial uses, but considerable scope remains for improving the productivity of water. In all four of the cases we analyzed, productivity of water that is presently being depleted by agriculture can be improved. The four subbasins are representative of situations that we believe are typical of many other basins worldwide. With the methodology used, we were able to shed light on opportunities to increase water productivity. It appears that the methodology is thorough and robust, and can be applied to other basins."
"Due to increasing scarcity of freshwater resources that are available for irrigated agriculture, in the future, it will be necessary to produce more food with less water. More irrigated land is devoted to rice than to any other crop. One method to save water in irrigated rice cultivation is the intermittent drying of the rice fields instead of keeping them continuously flooded. This method is referred to as alternate wet/dry irrigation (AWDI). Apart from the water saving potential of AWDI there are also potential human health benefits. Rice fields provide a habitat for mosquitoes to lay their eggs, and rice agrosystems have traditionally been associated with mosquito-borne diseases, especially malaria and Japanese encephalitis. If rice fields are dried, as in AWDI, the mosquito larvae will die and less adult mosquitoes will be produced in the rice fields. This could lead to a lower incidence of malaria and Japanese encephalitis. In certain areas and under the right conditions, AWDI is a promising method in irrigated rice cultivation with dual benefits of water saving and human disease control, while maintaining rice yields at least at the same level. However, many factors play a role in determining the success or failure of AWDI. Some of these factors can be influenced, such as irrigation infrastructure and irrigation management capacity, while others cannot be, such as rainfall and soil conditions. The increased productivity of water, not the mosquito control is likely to be the critical factor that will make farmers and irrigation department officials adopt AWDI in water-scarce areas. This report reviews previous studies on AWDI with a focus on mosquito vector control, water saving, and rice yields. Examples are given from a number of countries and recommendations are provided for further studies."
The Mahananda Flood Control Scheme (MFCS) is a case of a solution being worse than the problem it is designed to solve. Embankments under the MFCS have created a problem of waterlogging which damages crops, and the residents have no option but to breach the embankments. MFCS illustrates what happens when there is poor communication between political decision-makers and technical experts, and none between these two and the people affected by that decision.
India and Bangladesh argue that their lean season requirements are greater than the Ganges flow. Both agree that 'augmentation' is the solution. But true augmentation can only come from efficient use of water and tapping other sources of water. In the case of a natural resource such as water, requirements are to be brought down to the level of availability of river flows, not the other way around.
"Despite the widespread adoption of green revolution technology over the last three decades, enormous differences in agricultural productivity exist across farms and regions in Pakistan. Recent farm-level data from Sindh, for example, indicate that irrigated wheat output per hectare varies from 0.5 to 5.4 tons across farms. Improving and sustaining productivity, narrowing the existing productivity gaps, and enhancing resource use efficiencies to meet food requirements of a rapidly growing population is now a central goal of agricultural policy in the country. However, serious concerns over rapid degradation of both land and water resources are emerging. There is growing evidence that land quality is deteriorating with severe problems of water logging and salinity. In addition, irrigation water is becoming increasingly scarce with growing demand and increasing competition across sectors and regions. Poor management of these resources is one of the major contributing factors to this situation. "This study attempts to enhance the understanding of the factors that determine differences in agricultural productivity. The main objective of this report is to evaluate performance of irrigated wheat farms with a view to analyze cross-sectional productivity differences and to determine the productivity potential in Sindh. In contrast to most other similar studies done in Pakistan, the present study focuses on examining the influence of quality of resources and adequacy of irrigation water on farm productivity. "The study is based on cross-sectional data collected from a random sample of 1,220 irrigated wheat farms located in 14 canal commands in the Lower Indus Basin of Sindh Province. The basic approaches used in the study consist of evaluating farm performance using Data Envelopment Analysis (a non-parametric programming method), and quantifying elasticities and marginal productivity of production inputs by estimating aggregate and disaggregated production functions. The combination of these two methods provided insight into the factors that determine the observed farm productivity gaps within and among canal commands in the province. Average farm level performance index was estimated at 74 percent, implying that wheat producers can reduce inputs by 26 percent by adopting the best practices of efficient producers. The results show that the best performing producers in Sindh comprise 20 percent of the total with a performance index estimated at 100 percent. A further 30 percent is operating at a fairly high level of performance with the index ranging from 70 to 90 percent, and the remaining 50 percent is operating at low levels with the performance index ranging from 40 to 69 percent. Shortage of irrigation water in some canal commands and poor land quality in others are two fundamental constraints to productivity increases in the province. Unless these constraints are removed, benefits from other production enhancing programs, including subsidies on inputs (seed, fertilizer, credit, etc.), are likely to be very limited. Marginal productivity of irrigation water is found to vary significantly across canal commands. The analysis suggests that productivity gains in the immediate short run can be achieved by the effective reallocation of water across canal commands. However, sustained productivity increases in the long run would be achieved through effective management of, and additional investments in, both land and water resources."