Constitution of farmer organizations in SAS Project

At the onset it is noteworthy, that in SAS Project region (and in the two case study sites) several attempts were made to make farmer organizations in a short period of less than a decade (from 1985-1995). Thus, farmers (if not very active, or part of these committees) were not able to distinguish one committee from the other, and their responses sometimes overlapped, as they would begin recalling details of, for instance - sinchai panchayats, and conclude the discussion with talking about outlet committees (Field Notes, September 2011). One of the reasons for this could be that during the time of the fieldwork, two decades had already passed since the old committees were constituted and (now) lay defunct. This, however, is also indicative of not enough attention paid by the state to build awareness amongst farmers about new institutions that were being designed in this region on a pilot basis to improve farmer participation in irrigation management.

It is noteworthy that farmers did not have any prior experience of irrigation in this region (see section 6.1.3 and Box 6.1), hence, irrigation and involvement of farmers in irrigation management was a new notion for them. Furthermore, during the course of fieldwork I was not able to collect any secondary information (like number of farmer organizations, membership pattern within farmer organization, minutes of meeting of these organizations, finances disbursed, area under farmer organizations, details of capacity building programmes) on any of these old/first generation farmer organizations as the generic response during the fieldwork by officials from WRD, Vidisha was that this was very old information and it was not available or they had no idea where it is. The state of affairs of small town government office is evident from Photograph 6.2, which is telling.

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Photograph 6. 2: Documents stored in project office

Sinchai panchayats

Sinchai panchayats were constituted in Madhya Pradesh in mid-1980s. These panchayats were constituted under Madhya Pradesh Irrigation Act of 1931 (salient features of the Act discussed in Appendix IV). The sinchai panchayats were constituted in the state under Section 62(i) of Irrigation Act and were mandated to perform four main functions:

“Assist the officer of the irrigation department in detecting and preventing encroachments on canal lands prevent damage to irrigation works and report any wilful damage caused to irrigation works. Assist the officers of the irrigation department in arranging for the construction of water course, in recording and checking of irrigation and in making measurements and settling disputes. Collect irrigation revenue and remit to the treasury. Arrange for the repair of watercourses” (GoMP, 1931, Section 62(2);

emphasis added).

From the above citation it is apparent that structural constraints were instituted in sinchai panchayats by design by envisaging sinchai panchayat members as mere assistants to WRD officials rather than providing the members any decision-making power. This is in sync with the state’s ideational landscape that heralded centrist state policies. It is noteworthy that by late 1980s at the national level, ideas and ideologies of neoliberalism were seeping in and thus there was call for lesser role of the state in management of irrigation as a consequence of poor financial condition of the irrigation bureaucracies (discussed in chapter four and five). However, it is known that ideas take time to travel and institutionalize. Thus, in Madhya Pradesh in the late 1980s the first farmer organization that were formed still insinuated top-down role for farmers as these organizations were constituted based on the colonial Irrigation Act 1931 of Madhya Pradesh which state ‘the member of

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irrigation panchayat shall be deemed to be a Public Servant for the purpose of Indian Penal Code’

(GoMP, 1931; 1981, p. 127). Moreover, panchayat members were paid an honorarium at the rate of 3 per cent for the first INR 1000 collected and an additional 2 per cent subsequent collection. The collected amount was to be distributed amongst members of panchayat (CWC, 2010, p. 38). Payment of honorarium was considered to be an incentive for smooth functioning and better performance of panchayat functions.

Moreover, the district collector was a powerful actor at the intermediate level and held key to decentralization at the micro level in context of constitution of the sinchai panchayats that were set up in the state. The district collector played an essential role both in constitution and dissolution of sinchai panchayats, as selection for the sinchai panchayat members was done with support from district collector’s office. Further, number of members to be elected in one sinchai panchayat was not fixed according to the Irrigation Act. Rather was determined by the district collectors’ office bearing in mind recommendations of the executive engineer’s office. The average term of a sinchai panchayat according to the Irrigation Act 1931 was three years, though the district collector had the power to extend the term of office of a sinchai panchayat for a period not exceeding three years in aggregate (GoMP, 1975, Rule 143, 144(a)). The district collector had the power to nominate one member of the sinchai panchayat and s/he also had power to dissolve these panchayats by merely giving an order in writing (GoMP, 1975, Rule 144(c)). Overall, the district collector’s office was the primary decision making body for conducting sinchai panchayat elections along with the executive engineer (from the Irrigation Department) who was responsible for making proposals that outlined number of members to be fixed for a sinchai panchayat and also fix date, time and place for elections. Subsequently, the proposal for constitution of sinchai panchayats was submitted to district collector’s office for consideration and approval, and the district collector had the final authority on decision-making. From the Irrigation Department, the sub division officer was responsible for ensuring formation and functioning of these panchayats. The sub division officer undertook this work with the aid of amins (accountant/ person responsible for revenue collection) and junior functionaries (like time keeper, watchman) to distribute water to a sinchai panchayat (GoI, 1989).

The election for sinchai panchayat president was done through nomination. All permanent landholders within the command area were considered electors for a sinchai panchayat. These electors were identified/defined by the executive engineer responsible for managing the canal system (GoMP, 1975, Rule 147(a)). The primary decision-making body for constitution, and selection of members was with officials (district collector and executive engineer) at the intermediate level.

The above discussion highlights the power intermediate level bureaucrats had over decentralizing the micro level. It is noteworthy that no efforts/inclination was shown to decentralize the

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intermediate level functioning by involving farmer organizations at this juncture. This is consonance with deliberation in chapter four on including farmers in management of irrigation system. Here it also needs to be noted that Madhya Pradesh has a long history of struggle for agrarian and environmental movement. This peaked in the late 1980s and 1990s in form of the Narmada Bachao Andolan (Save the Narmada Movement), which is a social movement struggle against 300 small and large dams in India, and this struggle peaked with contestation over building of Sardar Sarovar Project in southern Madhya Pradesh. The movement contested knowledge claims role and hegemony of method of development being pursued and which displaced local population and neglected existing local knowledge of subaltern groups (Singh, 2004). Contrastingly to happenings in central and southern Madhya Pradesh, however, the command area of the SAS project did not witness similar contestation and first generation farmer organization like sinchai panchayats were constituted by state ruling.

Outlet committees

Additionally, outlet committees were formed as part of the Action Research Programme in select area in SAS Project area. According to WRD an opening from a canal is identified as an outlet when a 9 to 12 inch wide RCC un-gated pipes are fitted in the embankment to serve as an outlet for water in the chak or outlet command area (WALMI, 1991a, p. 13). Outlets committees were informally organized, and as a result were not registered. Each committee had 40 hectares under its command area. Thokdars (outlet committee leaders) were responsible for distributing water in respective outlet command areas during irrigation season. Puranik (1997, pp. 143, 146) researched these committees in the SAS Project and observes that they were active only during the irrigation season and during the rest of the year they laid dormant. The outlet committees were formed by WALMI, who held meetings with farmers on a pre-decided date and time. All permanent landholders in an outlet were members of the outlet committee, and thokdars were selected by nomination as leaders of outlet committee (WALMI, 1991a, p. 29). Interestingly, description of selection of thokdars in the Action Research Programme report of WALMI is: ‘frequent interaction with clients had given fair ideas about the influential people (who could be) acting as group leaders’ (ibid.). Two points that need to be elaborated from the above citation is that elite farmers’ in the outlet’s command/chak area were given preference and selected as thokdars. Furthermore, influential farmers during that period were either the village patel’s (traditional authority) of the village or those individuals who were favoured by the village patel. Given, that WALMI officials, selected group leaders or thokdars on this criterion, hence, only medium or large landholding farmers gained from this selection process.

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As part of the capacity building programme for outlet committee members, select farmers from each outlet committee were taken for field visit to Maharashtra to interact with farmers in Maharashtra and to learn irrigation methods employed them. The objective of the field visit for WALMI was to motivate select farmers who in turn were responsible to create further awareness in their villages about salience of farmer organization for better irrigation management (WALMI, 1991a, p. 30).

Additionally, training programme for farmers was also organized by WALMI in a close by town on May 20, 1988 where the then MLA from the region emphasized that officers of the irrigation department ought to meet the farmers more frequently to solve their problems (WALMI, 1991a, p.

9). Despite these efforts made for capacity building, these outlet committees were not successful and were more on paper rather than actuality. Moreover, from name of these committees, it is self-evident that their focus was also on micro level irrigation management i.e. the outlet level and intermediate level issues were not considered.

To recall from chapter five, in the early 1990s Chief Minister Digvijay Singh had initiated decentralization drive in Madhya Pradesh and as an outcome of this decentralization drive, few of these outlet committee areas were shortlisted for registration under Madhya Pradesh Societies Registration Act of 1973. One of them was Betwa Krishak Samiti in the same region that earlier had Betwa sinchai panchayat, and needs further elaboration.

Betwa Krishak Samiti

In the year 1994-1995, in order to decentralize irrigation management in the state, a total of 65 farmer organizations were formed on pilot basis under Madhya Pradesh Societies Registration Act of 1973. Of these 65 farmer organizations, Betwa Krishak Samiti (hereafter Krishak Samiti), in the SAS Project area was the first farmer organization that was constituted in Madhya Pradesh on July 20, 1995 for instituting cooperation of farmers in irrigation management as part of the decentralization drive of the 1990s. This samiti was registered under the Madhya Pradesh Societies Registration Act on August 22, 1995 and was formed on one of the tail end minor of the canal. The Krishak Samiti had 504.43 hectares of land (162 farmer fields) in its command area and was spread across five villages/hamlets in adjacent districts of Raisen and Vidisha (SAS Krishak Samiti, 1995). The Betwa Krishak Samiti was not very different from the sinchai panchayat that were constituted in the state in the 1980s. The only difference being that sinchai panchayat had several minor channels and/or distributory under its functioning while Betwa Krishak Samiti had one of the tail end minors under it.

Funding for constituting Betwa Krishak Samiti was provisioned under National Water Management Programme of the World Bank (Interview, Senior WRD official, December 16, 2011).

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