Where Water Seeps!: Towards a New Phase in India's Irrigation Reforms

History of irrigation reforms in India dates back to the beginning of the 20th century. A number of studies have addressed to the need and process of reforms but these largely ended with two rhythmic suggestions involving pricing of irrigation water and participatory management of the sources of irrigation. It is startling to note that most of these solutions are a century old. The authors have provided evidence that these reform solutions began from the very First Irrigation Commission Report of 1903, and continued thereafter, reappearing periodically almost after every two decades albeit with fragmentary success. This study integrates efforts of the authors incorporating more than a decade's sustained work addressing to the question of irrigation reforms in the current context. The authors preferred not to take the usually traded path and at the same time not totally avoiding it analytically. Here's a study that covers the entire canvass of irrigation development in India and addresses the issues for further analysis. It dwells over the specific problem of irrigation, to provide the technically feasible and economically viable solutions under declining availability of water and increasing demand for it. The study incorporates analysis of the nexus between poverty and irrigation as well as agricultural wages in the context of irrigation, an area hitherto neglected by irrigation analysts. Finally, it deals with the participatory irrigation management and power subsidy issues in a most candid manner to suggest a path for reforms under the present conditions of scarce water availability and market orientation.