India: The Irrigation Question

Introduction to IWMI Research on National River Linking

Project

Tushaar Shah

Does NRLP make economic sense?Does it make hydrologic sense?

Does it make political sense?

Original Research Goal

Cost Efficiency: quickest and cheapest way of addressing water-stress; does it represent the most efficient way of

using resources and time to counter water scarcity in west and south and flood-losses in the east?

Cost-effectiveness: putting into place the ‘best’ feasible arrangement to address water-stress; could an alternative

approach be more effective?

Cost-Benefit Analysis: Given the most effective project, is it worth investing in it? Do the benefits exceed cost? Is its IRR

higher than alternative investment proposals? Value-for-money. Is this money better invested in say education?

Alternative Approaches..

As the project evolved, we figured NRLP design was based on inadequate understanding of how Indian

irrigation is actually functioning. And that we need to understand what is the best way of intervening in it..

“Imposing Discipline on a Screwy Site”

1.Bounding the phenomena for paying attention.2. building a repertoire of possible interventions.

3. Generating action theories .

Donald Schon, The Reflective Professional

• The ‘environment scanning’ research; putting a radar on how agrarian India is irrigating; where is Indian irrigation heading..

• Irrigation business model in South Asia is rapidly changing

• India and the rise of a ‘water scavenging irrigation economy’.

• ‘Command and duty’ versus ‘irrigating at will’: Two alternative irrigation business models.

• The change is driven by the new agricultural business model.

• How does NRLP fit into this screwy site?

Grey-Sadoff thesis on water infrastructure investments and its impact on economic growth of a country. Is India an out-

liar?

‘Water Security’ & the ‘Minimum Platform’

What future contingencies might make it a priority project? Or under what conditions it will receive post-facto justification?

Contingencies that may increase the justification for NRLP

1. A much richer US $ 2 trillion Indian economy may be more enthusiastic about NRLP than today’s US $ 700 million Indian economy.

2. Economy-wide demand for improved performance of public systems in infrastructure creation and management may ease the prevailing opposition to “ sterile gigenticism”; 3. Economy-wide pressures to improve the rehabilitation of projected-affected people in road, SEZ and such other dynamic infrastructure areas may alleviate civil society concerns about R&R in large water projects

4. Increasing prosperity drives the ‘median voter’ to demand better services andPay for it, making public water infrastructure better managed.

5. to intensive diversification of Indian agriculture that generates higher output-value per m3 of water generating economic demand for canal irrigation.

6. Rising energy costs increase demand for surface water either for direct application to crops or for groundwater recharge in western and peninsular India.

The Workshop

This workshop brings you studiesUnder both the tracks: one looking atSocio-economic analysis of irrigation

investments; and the other in the tradition of an ‘environment scan’.

Thank you.