Farmer Management of Groundwater Irrigation in Asia: Experience of Community-Managed Tubewells in the Command of a Surface Irrigation Project

THE FARMERS OF an area situated in the tail end of a branch canal offtaking from the lower-middle reaches of the eastern main canal of Gandak Project, which was planned to provide surface irrigation to the western part of North Bihar, took an assertive initiative of rejecting the planned extension of canal irrigation on account of its doubtful benefits and definite damages to their area. Instea\l, they took the positive action of providing themselves with groundwater irrigation. They formed a registered society, named as V aishali Area Small Farmers Association (V ASFA) in 1971 charged with the responsibility of installation, operation and maintenance, and management of tubewells, the number of which grew to 36 during the course of a decade since the inception of VASFA. An experience of about two decades of the functioning ofV ASFA and the performance of the irrigation system provided by it indicate that V ASFA was eminently successful in achieving its purpose and objective. Non-expansion ofVASFA's irrigation membership, the stagnation of the number of tubewells under its management and other developments in the area indicate that the experiment of VASFA in its original form and activities is not replicable for other areas, primarily due to the change in the techno-economic context. However, the basic lessons of VASFA, i.e., adoption of an irrigation strategy appropriate to the agro-hydro-ecological regime of the area, farmers' control and management of irrigation and community initiative and action in the face of inaction or misaction of the government are universally relevant for development of sustainable and productive irrigation in North Bihar and other areas having similar socioeco­nomic and agrohydrological conditions.