Cropland use change impacts of water conservation assets built under a large public works program in India

Enacted in 2006, the Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Act (MGNREGA) instituted a large public works program that provides 100 days of assured employment to volunteering members of rural households in India. It is implemented at the village level by the local government, called the Gram Panchayat, which undertakes development projects considered important to the village community using funds allocated through MGNREGA. This paper studies the impact of MGNREGA-based water conservation through farm ponds on agricultural land use patterns within Gram Panchayats. It looks at how farm pond construction influences land use transitions from single cropping in one year to multiple cropping in the next and vice versa. Farm ponds can increase soil moisture, provide irrigation water storage facilities, and serve as a means of livelihood through pisciculture or animal husbandry. Economic adaptation to such changes by households can cause shifts in local agricultural land use patterns. We find that the construction of new farm ponds in a Gram Panchayat drives a 4% (2.2%-6.1%) year-on-year increase in single to double/triple-cropping transitions while reducing the transitions in the reverse direction. Preexisting farm ponds and previous cropping patterns in the Gram Panchayat also play a significant role in determining the extent and direction of transitions. The study provides valuable insights for policymakers aiming to enhance agricultural productivity and rural livelihoods through water conservation initiatives. This research combines national scale with a fine Gram Panchayatlevel granularity bringing together a unique spatial data repository comprising a variety of variables related to natural and built environments as well as administrative data which can potentially generate wide-ranging research opportunities in empirical economics and applied econometrics.