Lift Irrigation - Participatory Irrigation Management

Participatory Irrigation Management

The main purpose of the irrigation reform programme in Andhra Pradesh is to improve the sustainability and productivity of irrigation through sharing irrigation management responsibility with the farmers organized as Water Users Associations. Towards this the State government enacted the Andhra Pradesh Farmers Management of Irrigation System Act in 1997. Presently, water users’ organizations under the APFMIS Act is constituted at three different levels in major irrigation projects - Water Users Associations (WUAs) at the minor canal level, Distributor Committees (DCs) at the distributor canal level and Project Committee (PCs) at the main canal level. In medium irrigation project they are constituted at two levels – WUA at the minor canal level and PC at the main canal level. In minor irrigation tanks only a WUA is constituted covering the whole tank command. A total of 10,748 WUAs have been constituted – 2261 in major irrigation projects, 410 in medium irrigation projects and 8077 in minor irrigation tanks. The water users’ organizations undertake the responsibilities of seasonal crop planning and irrigation water regulation, O&M works on canal system and assist in tax collection. To facilitate the functioning of the water users’ organizations the State government re-ploughs 100% of the irrigation water tax collected from them. The water tax collection and plough back for O&M to water users’ organizations over the last 5 years is given in the Table below:

Reference http://www.naandi.org/anual_report/2004-2005.pdf http://www.naandi.org/anual_report/1_Naandi_AR%2805-06%29.pdf http://liftirrigation.org/html/case_study.html