Farmer Organizations for Lift Irrigation: Irrigation Companies and Tubewell Cooperatives of Gujarat

Abstract

"Group ownership and management of lift irrigation becomes important where small and fragmented land holdings make individual ownership of wells unviable, and where tubewell installation entails high capital costs and is fraught with high risks of failure. In central and north Gujarat where both these situations co-exist, a range of institutional innovations have facilitated the rise of a plurality of contracts and regimes for collective ownership and management of irrigation assets. Prominent amongst these are: water markets, tubewell co-operatives and irrigation companies. This study reports results of interviews with 27 co-operatives and 13 companies focusing essentially on their internal organisation, management and control. While member-owned irrigation companies appear uniformly more robust and productive compared to co-operatives, their equity impacts too are not necessarily inferior to co-operatives."