Strategic Analysis of India

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SOCIAL EQUITY IMPACTS OF INCREASED WATER FOR
IRRIGATIONAmrita Sharma, Deepa Joshi and
Samyuktha Varma

• Strategic Analysis of Indias River Linking
  Project Case study of the Polavaram Vijaywada
  link
• IWMI CPWF
• August 30, 2007

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Main question

• What are the poverty and equity impacts of
  increased water for irrigation on different
  socio-economic groups inter- and intra-household
  levels in the command area/s?

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Outline

• Impacts of irrigation on poverty and the concerns
  for social equity
• Methodology and description of study areas
• Testing popular hypotheses on the
  irrigation-equity link
• The head-tail divide
• Irrigation and crop diversification
• Irrigation and employment generation
• Social geography and changing livelihoods
• Gender
• Concluding remarks

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Irrigation and Social Equity

• Impacts of Irrigation on poverty discussed in
  terms of
• Direct Increased crop yields, productivity, farm
  income
• Indirect impacts Rural employment, economic
  multipliers
• Equity is an increasingly important concern for
  irrigation, but has not been addressed
  sufficiently by studies.
• Equity is
• Recognizing the heterogeneity of populations in
  planning.
• Poverty, Equity, Gender not built into irrigation
  planning and design

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Methodology

• 4 villages, NSC/ proposed Polavaram
• Purposive Sampling 40 HHs/village caste / farm
  size
• Irrigation allocations location, equity and
  reliability
• Cropping patterns, yield, productivity, returns
  from agriculture
• Livestock, domestic water, non-agricultural water
  uses impacts of irrigation
• Labor opportunities, wage rates
• Nature/extent of dependence on agriculture and
  income from agriculture
• Education, migration, land transactions -
  reforms/redistributions

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Methodology

• Qualitative discussions
• Irrigation management and access to the
  irrigation water
• Inclusion/transparency and water
  allocation/management
• Crop Productivity, livelihood security and
  options for diversification
• Changes in the Social Geography due to Irrigation
• Perceived outcomes in terms of the nature of
  transformations that have occurred as a result of
  irrigation

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Nagarjunasagar command

• Kondrepole, Damarcherla mandal, Nalgonda district
• Southeast tip of Telengana, Deccan Plateau
  relatively low rainfall 50 canal irrigation
  head end 2 paddy crops/yr land consolidation and
  purchase - relative loss to SCs population
• Velatoor, G Kondur mandal, Krishna district less
  than 28 canal irrigation delta region of
  Krishna ground water reliable rainfall,
  diversified agriculture mango larger number of
  small farms

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Polavaram proposed command

• Yernagudem, Devarapalli mandal, West Godavari
  district,
• 80 gross irrigated, reliable rainfall, 100
  ground water development paddy, sugarcane,
  tobacco land consolidation labor rates lower
• Chinnadoddigallu, Nakapalli mandal, Vishakapatnam
  district,
• 21 irrigation Thandava reservoir, rainshadow,
  4 bore wells 3000 acres, 80 seasonal
  migration, 144 acres of land loss to canal, rapid
  land transactions, labor rates relative to urban
  demands

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Testing popular hypotheses on the
irrigation-equity link

• The head and the tail
• Hypothesis equity dimensions of irrigation
  projects are closely related to the unequal
  distribution of water across difference reaches
  of the canal.
• Unauthorized water withdrawal in upper reaches by
  farmers who were not originally planned in the
  ayacut because of elevation.
• authorities have justified these actions on human
  grounds the farmers having prepared the ground
  for irrigation themselves.
• tailenders have little faith in the WUAs.

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Testing popular hypotheses on the
irrigation-equity link

• Location of plots who is in the head and who in
  the tail?
• Location of Plots for different land
  classes in Kondrepol

Kondrepol Head Middle Tail
Average landholding 7 6 5
Smallholders (0-3 acres) 17 28 56
Medium holders (3-10 acres) 15 31 54
Largeholders (above 10 acres) 73 18 9
Source Analysis based on Primary survey 2006-07
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Testing popular hypotheses on the
irrigation-equity link

• Irrigation and crop diversification
• Hypothesis One of the main impacts of irrigation
  is on increase in cropping intensity and crop
  diversification.
• The canal irrigated village of Kondrepol is the
  one with least amount of crop diversification.
  Among the four sample villages the most dynamic
  farming system was that of Yernagudem a
  groundwater irrigated village. No significant
  difference in cropping patterns across
  landholding and castes.

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Testing popular hypotheses on the
irrigation-equity link

• Irrigation and employment
• Hypothesis Increased rural employment as a
  result of higher cropping intensity, cultivation
  of labor-intensive crops plus opportunities for
  non-farm employment is the way that irrigation
  benefits reach the poor.
• In the canal irrigated villages, while employment
  is more or less guaranteed, and often assured to
  mitigate out-migration, wage labour rates have
  not increased subject to improved returns to
  the landed from irrigation.

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Social geography and changing livelihoods

• Altering social geography
• The landed move out Lambadas of Kondrepole
• Networks and political capital Kammas of
  Kondrepole
• Losing land to the canal SCs of Kondrepole and
  Velatoor
• These movements and changes over time, since the
  introduction of irrigation, reveal how irrigation
  shapes the social geography of an area giving
  important clues as to how existing inequities can
  benefit or be detrimental to communities
  positioned differently.

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Social geography and changing livelihoods

• How have different communities fared after the
  coming in of irrigation and how well they have
  been able to make use of the economic
  opportunities presented to them?
• Gollas and Kapus of Velatoor
• Other constraints to livelihood diversification
  caste based restrictions on fishing, Madigas of
  Kondrepole
• Interestingly, in a ranking exercise
• Big farmers ranked (1) water (2) finance
• Medium farmers - responded in the same way
• Small farmers (1) land (2) water
• Landless (1) land (2) capital

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Gender

• Little change in terms of womens access to and
  control of key agricultural assets
• A higher percentage of women were engaged in work
  outside their houses in the Nagarjunasagar
  command.
• Results of time use survey in the Sagar command
  the average number of hours spent by men and
  women on agricultural work is higher. Further,
  the number of work hours of women on the farms is
  higher than that of men.
• In the proposed Polavaram villages, however, the
  number of work hours on the farm is much less in
  comparison, and womens work hours are slightly
  lesser than that of men. In the Polavaram
  proposed command, womens time is spent more on
  the household chores.

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Concluding remarks

• Surface irrigation is no longer the panacea
  at-least in the research villages
• Surface irrigation changed the economy of the
  research areas several years ago but there
  was no significant spill over to the poor not
  enough to lift the poorest out of poverty
  additionally there have been some negative
  impacts for e.g. a small (lower than national).
  
• Surface irrigation is said to have produced
  higher inequality in the distribution of benefits
  across farms and more so in areas with skewed
  land holding (Sampath 1990, cited by Bhattarai et
  al, 2002). Redirection right institutional
  focus and pro-poor policies.
• Inclusive irrigation planning and development
  that takes into account intra- and
  inter-potentials and -limitations of target-area
  households.

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• Thank you