Objectives of PIM

Editorís note: This article has been extracted from a paper presented to the Second National Seminar on PIM held in New Delhi, India in June 1995.

There should be no uniform prescription of what tasks a water users association (WUA) should perform. Each WUA should be free to evolve its own idea of the tasks that it may want to perform through a process of learning from experience. WUAs could accordingly take up some or all of the following functions:

• water distribution to ensure that water reaches all members as per their due share;
• operation and maintenance;
• collection (and assessment) of water charges and other special charges that the WUA may levy;
• resolution of local disputes among members;
• agricultural extension and farmer training;
• provision of agricultural inputs and credit to members;
• irrigation extension and promotion of improved on-farm and intra-outlet irrigation practices;
• recommending certain cropping patterns;
• developing ground water supplies for conjunctive water use;
• drainage;
• provision of drinking water from the irrigation supply;
• monitoring soil and water quality;
• coordinating post-harvest activities (grading, packaging, storage, marketing);
• any other tasks as agreed by the members.

The nature of a particular WUA would depend upon many factors. For example, a WUA set up before construction starts would be able to have an input on the design of the system and oversee the construction. This type of situation would be quite different from a WUA set up after construction has been completed. The scale of WUA operations also determines its characteristics. WUAs managing an entire branch canal, for example, would have a different type of organization than one managing only an outlet or distributary.

Since the WUA would need to have some rights to receiving a certain supply of water, the WUA should invariably be based on a hydrologic unit. The WUA could differentiate between members and non members as regards charging of fees and provision of services. However, all members and non-members would have a right to receive their share of water.

As WUAs take over many management functions, the government would concentrate more on construction and on the management of the dams and main canal systems, providing technical advice, training, and motivating or catalyzing the creation of new WUAs. This evolution would imply a reorientation of government departments to deal effectively with PIM.

Many WUAs would function with the government continuing to manage, operate, and maintain the major canals. However, some WUAs would be willing to take over even these large canals. In such cases, either the government would need to bring the canal up to a given standard prior to management transfer, or the government would need to negotiate with the WUA a package of improvements to be undertaken following transfer.

While rehabilitation packages can be a key element of the formation of WUAs, there are also major social, institutional, and training support needed both during and after WUA formation. PIM must not be looked upon as a means to help irrigation officers perform their duties, but as a new form of management partnership between farmers and government. It should be based upon a holistic, comprehensive, and integrated multi-disciplinary approach aimed at optimal use of the precious water resource.

- Rakesh Hooja, Secretary for Command Area Development, Government of Rajasthan, India