Pani Panchayat in Orissa, India: The practice of participatory water management
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Local/Global Encounters
Pani Panchayat in Orissa, India: The practice of participatory water management
BASANTA KUMAR SAHU
ABSTRACT Basanta Kumar Sahu argues that new policy interventions such as Pani Panchayat in Orissa, India ignores local socioeconomic set up fails to ensure community participation. Dominance by upper caste and richer members, lack of group dynamics, exclusion of local needs and institutions, ill-defined property rights, constraints in input supply such as credit and extension services, etc. discourage participation. He suggests what is needed is the strengthening of existing local institutions, augmenting the resource base and ensuring equity in water access would allow for better management and development of water resources. KEYWORDS institutions and water conflicts; elites; socioeconomic divisions; inequities
Introduction To govern the use of water resource has become a challenging task given the everincreasing water scarcity and water conflicts. Although devolving responsibility of water conservation and management to water institutions has found a prominent place in the Indian national water policy priorities, it is the use of traditional technical knowledge and local institutions in acquiring, controlling and managing water resource that play a crucial role in the success of new policy interventions. To carry out the operation and maintenance of the existing irrigation systems, users or farmers are asked to take up the responsibility through irrigation management transfer. The user groups also known as water user associations (WUAs) are often a response to the state failure. They are expected to perform key roles from service delivery to supervisory role of the public officials who run the system. It is important to understand how these new policy interventions in water resource management and development are functioning. The impact of new institutions in participatory water management such as Pani Panchayat (PP) in Orissa give a useful insight into equity and access to water, transfer of property rights and handling water conflicts. Orissa is a relatively high water resource endowed1 state in India that has experienced some recent policy changes that have shifted water management and irrigation system from government departments to farmer’s organizations under WUA. During the 1990s, the state demonstrated massive interest in farmers’ participation in water and Development (2008) 51, 121–125. doi:10.1057/palgrave.development.1100448
Development 51(1): Local/Global Encounters set up a participatory irrigation system, covering all the irrigation projects in the state.2 Subsequently, the Orissa PP Act3 was implemented in 2002 to facilitate participative water management and development in the state. The state has promulgated the Orissa PP Rules, 2003 to provide a legal framework for such participation. This was mainly a part of administrative reform undertaken elsewhere in the country with objective hand over part of the canal system/irrigation to the users for its operation and maintena
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