Browsing by Author "Kumar, M. Dinesh"

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Food Security and Sustainable Agriculture in India: The Water Management Challenge
(2003) Kumar, M. Dinesh
"The author argues that the allocation of tradable private property rights in water will lead to overall enhancement in the economic efficiency of water use and higher productivity in agriculture. The enforcement of tradable private property rights will ensure equitable access to water in water scarce regions for agriculture, and also for all classes. This is critical from the point of view of local and domestic food security. Moreover, as in water abundant regions, it can also provide the landless farmers with sufficient incentives to invest in development and transfer water for highly productive uses elsewhere, and generate income. The volumetric pricing of water from public canals and unit pricing of electricity in the farm sector with carefully designed structures, along with properly enforced water rights, can, not only improve the physical efficiency of the water use in agriculture, but also provide the rich and poor farmers with equal income earning opportunities from farming."
Institutional Change Needs for Sustainable Urban Water Management in India
(2011) Bassi, Nitin; Kumar, M. Dinesh; Kumara, Harish
"Rise in population coupled with rapid economic growth is seen as a major factor resulting in higher rate of water resources depletion globally. The problem of water scarcity is more acute in cities and towns of the developing world, where most of the challenges of water supply, sanitation and environmental sustainability are still unanswered. In these towns and cities, urban water systems are troubled with: 1) inefficient water pricing; 2) heavy leakage & unaccounted for water losses; 3) contamination of the supplied water and; 4) lack of political will, and institutional & financial capability for carrying out reforms. Situation in Indian urban centers is much alarming where distribution losses alone are in the order of 30-50 per cent of the total water supplied. The condition is even worse for informal settlements and slums in these urban areas where basic water and sanitation infrastructure are altogether missing. In order to meet these growing urban water management challenges, there is need for paradigm shift, i.e., shift in the way the urban water resources are managed. This research paper highlights the institutional change needs for sustainable urban water management in India. The institutional change will involve: 1) one or combination of organizational change measures comprising decentralization, private sector participation and, community-based management; 2) directive reforms and; 3) human resource development. The finer aspects will depend upon the physical and socio-economic environment, political situation and administrative set up that exist in the urban area. The institutional changes will be more so important for small urban towns where public utilities are given little attention. All these together can contribute to making Indian cities better prepared for averting the risk, in face of rapid urbanization, climate change and water scarcity."
Pampered Views and Parrot Talks: In the Cause of Well Irrigation in India
(2011) Kumar, M. Dinesh; Sivamohan, M. V. K.
"The paper reveals some of the fallacies in Indian irrigation. They are as follows. Groundwater is a democratic resource; access to well irrigation is more equitable than canals; well irrigation is more productive than canal irrigation and therefore is superior to canal irrigation. Surface irrigation is becoming increasingly irrelevant in India’s irrigation landscape in spite of growing investments, and therefore future investments in the sector should be diverted for well irrigation. The growth in well irrigation in semi arid regions of India can be sustained by recharging the aquifers using local runoff. Well irrigation can boost agricultural growth and eradicate poverty in water-abundant eastern India. The paper makes the following arguments. The inherent advantages of surface irrigation system over well irrigation such as higher system dependability and the ability to effectively address spatial mismatch in resource availability and demand, means the second is not a substitute for the first. The use of outdated irrigation management concepts which treat 'drainage' as waste leads to underassessment of efficiency of surface systems. Sustaining well irrigation in semi arid and arid regions would need 'imported surface water' rather than local runoff for recharging. The use of simple statistics of “area irrigated’ to pass judgements about performance of surface irrigation systems is sheer misuse of statistics, as there are complex socio-economic and hydrological processes adversely affecting their performance, which are beyond the institutional capacity of irrigation agencies to control. Well irrigation alone cannot boost agricultural growth and reduce poverty in eastern India as the region has very low per capita arable land, and offers low marginal returns from irrigation owing to high humidity and rainfall. Finally, to conclude improving the performance of irrigation systems, be it gravity or well, and sustaining the country’s irrigation growth is a governance challenge."
Reforms for End-users Based Irrigation Management: Insight from Central India
(2011) Bassi, Nitin; Kumar, M. Dinesh
"The irrigation sector plays a vital role in food production and rural economy. Realizing this, reforms are undertaken world over to modernize irrigation systems. One of the approaches followed in modernization is decentralization of irrigation management functions. This paper discusses the implementation of Irrigation Management Act in Central India where the responsibility of irrigation management was partially transferred to the end users through formation of farmers’ organizations. Emphasis is given to the administrative, governance, institutional and financial reforms carried out as per the act, and the impact these reforms had on irrigation management. The paper shows that the success of such reforms is highly dependent on the effectiveness of program execution and the financial resources available with the government. Such programs will reap intended benefits, if the end users for managing irrigation functions are involved in more effective manner with greater autonomy and delegation of powers. Also in lieu of paucity of government funds to carry out such programs on large-scale, alternative institutional models can be considered to further improve the overall efficiency and management of the irrigation systems."