A Comparative Study of Irrigation Systems in Japan and India ; Peasants' Joint Management or State Management?

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In the final year of this project the field surveys were conducted with the assistance of the three Indian counterpart scholars about the irrigation practices at the lowest level in the command area of large irrigation systems. The first survey spot was in a village in Meerut district, Uttar Pradesh, which comes under the command of the Ganga Canal, one of the largest canal systems in India. Here the main focus was placed on the actual practices of water utilization prevalent among the farmers concerned under the osrabandi system of the Uttar Pradesh Irrigation Department. The second survey was conducted in the Ukai-Kakrapad Project area in Gujarat State, Western India. In this area the emphasis was laid on the activities of eight water utilization associations with the aim of exploring the degree and types of farmers' participation in the maintenance and control of an irrigation system and also in the water distribution among the member-farmers. The third case study was done in Maharashtra State with the same purpose as in the case of Gujarat. All the survey data have not been yet processed and at this stage of the progress of this project any definite statement about the merits and demerits of the present irrigation systems in India can not be made.One point can be pointed out as a great defect of the Indian irrigation system that is the separation of the functions of irrigation and agricultural production at the level of a state government. The irrigatin department's responsibillity ends at an outlet which takes off from a minor or distributary of a large canal system to provide water to the farmers in its command. To remedy this defect since 1974-75 the command area development program has been introduced as a centrally sponsored scheme with fifty percent subsidy from the central government.