Sustainable Management of Tank Irrigation Systems in India

抄録

Tank irrigation systems of India are a century old. Most of the tanks have, over time, degraded into open access resources due to weak property relations. Encroachment, privatization and government appropriation of the tanks have been the main outcomes of the failure of local authority systems to enforce the institutional arrangements under the common property resources management regime. About 2% of the tanks in the tankless intensive region and 67% of the tanks in the intensive region have become defunct. Wells that are supposed to be security against late season tank water scarcity have of late become a major threat to the very survival of the tanks. Taxes from multiple uses of the tanks, if collected by a single agency are sufficient to meet the operation and maintenance expenditures of the tanks both in the short run and in the long run. The modernization options derived from a simulation model indicate that software strategies such as sluice management will have a higher pay-off than hardware strategies such as canal lining and additional wells. Policy interventions include physical investments, management and legal aspects.