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Irrigation management turnover: an option for improved utilization of limited water resources in Pakistan
Author(s) -
Latif Muhammad,
Pomee Muhammad Saleem
Publication year - 2003
Publication title -
irrigation and drainage
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.421
H-Index - 38
eISSN - 1531-0361
pISSN - 1531-0353
DOI - 10.1002/ird.93
Subject(s) - irrigation , irrigation management , business , water resource management , cropping , management system , distribution (mathematics) , water resources , agriculture , agricultural economics , environmental science , environmental planning , geography , operations management , economics , mathematics , agronomy , ecology , archaeology , biology , mathematical analysis
Underperformance of the irrigation systems and poor cost recovery from irrigated area in Pakistan have been a source of concern for the last few decades and since then it has been the subject of considerable external assistance and internal policy reforms. To address these problems in the management of irrigation systems, the World Bank proposed a number of institutional changes for irrigation management turnover (IMT). After thorough consideration it was decided to decentralize instead of privatizing the irrigation system management and to promote farmers' participation in the system management. Under these reforms, management at secondary canal level has recently been handed over to the farmers' organizations (FOs) of selected distributaries at a pilot scale. This study was designed to evaluate the farmer‐managed distributary in southern Punjab. Initial field measurements revealed that hydraulic aspects of the irrigation service delivered by the FO management have been significantly improved and as a result a highly proportionate and equitable water distribution pattern was observed, particularly at the tail reaches of the distributary during the post‐transfer scenario. Due to effective FO management farmers' interventions to increase the outlet discharge by illegal means have almost ceased. As a result of these improvements made by the FO in system management the extent of irrigated area has on average increased by 6–7% even under severe drought and continued famine‐like conditions prevailing in the country during recent years. Most importantly, cost recoveries have increased by an amount of 14% for summer and 23% for winter growing seasons respectively from the irrigated area of the distributary. Thus experience from the Hakra 4‐R distributary has shown that even under undesirable natural circumstances IMT was quite effective in achieving the key targets of the institutional reforms launched at pilot scale in the country. Copyright © 2003 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.