The irrigation system of Pakistan, based on the Indus and its tributaries, is one of the largest integrated irrigation networks in the world. Known as the Indus Basin Irrigation System, it consists of three major reservoirs with storage capacity of about 15 million acre feet (MAF), 19 barrages and 43 major canals, catering for the irrigation needs of agriculture sector of the country.

The prevailing irrigation system is the outcome of British colonial bureaucracy, being highly centralized leaving very little room for the participation of the farmers and the end users in managing the resource. This practice has given birth to a number of evils like wastage of water, its uneconomic use, corruption, inconsistent irrigation water supply, inequitable distribution, irrational and unsatisfactory planning, superfluous public expenditure and improper execution, operation and maintenance of irrigation and drainage system in the country.

It has set the pace to rapid deterioration in the capacities of the key institutions in the sector, necessitating bringing immediate improvements in order to save it from collapse. The Participatory Irrigation Management (PIM) is considered as one of the effective, efficient, and farmer-friendly systems, operating in many countries of the world, which has helped improve the efficiency and performance of irrigation system in those societies.

The basic theme of the system is to ensure involvement of water-users in all the aspects in the management of system through their organized associations. This system has been proposed to replace the age-old irrigation system in Pakistan through institutional reforms enshrined in the country’s National Drainage Programme (NDP) with the World Bank funding, besides many other steps for the improvement of irrigation and drainage system of the country, comprehensive institutional reforms are being carried out under the NDP.

Irrigation departments of the provinces are being replaced with more decentralized and participatory nature institutions i.e. Provincial Irrigation and Drainage Authorities (PIDA) at the provincial level, Area Water Boards (AWBs) at the Canal levels and Farmers Organizations (FOs) at the distributary level. The key aspect of this reform process is that the farmers are organized, encouraged, mobilized, and legally empowered to take charge of and run the irrigation system at the distributary level through FOs. Besides, the farmers are also provided representation at the AWB and PIDA (SIDA in Sindh) level.

In fact, the system of participatory irrigation is not a new one. This system has been introduced and is being successfully implemented in a number of developed and developing countries. Therefore, there are no apprehensions as for as the basic philosophy of the participatory irrigation system is concerned. However, the way the system is being introduced including the process, methodology and the nature of the implementation of the system in Pakistan, especially in Sindh has created a number of questions in the minds of those who are closely involved in the irrigation and agriculture system of the country.

For example, although the irrigation and agriculture are interrelated sectors largely depending on the performance of each other, in NDP policy changes have been confined to only irrigation sector. There are many other factors, which would continue to haunt the progress of irrigated agriculture if reforms are not broadened to cover agriculture sector also. For instance the issues related to prices of agriculture commodities, input market and agriculture extension would continue to have effect on the efficiency of irrigated agriculture. Therefore, without solving the problems associated with the above-mentioned agriculture issues the objective of efficiency and effectiveness of irrigated agriculture may not be achieved.

Similarly, the NDP was formulated as a national level programme and was supposed to be implemented in all the four provinces. However, soon after the initial launching of the programme Balochistan officially withdrew from it. After receiving this major blow the programme is set to receive another blow as Punjab, the major province of the country, has also started showing the signs of disinterest in the programme as the reform process implementation is going on in the province at snail’s pace. Despite World Bank warnings and passing of time limit for the implementation of the programme, a number of even basic steps have not been taken in Punjab.

This has created apprehensions about the future of the programme. These apprehensions have many valid causes. First, in the case of one province being out of the programme and another major province taking little interests, the programme loses its claim of being a national level programme, hence negating its basic objective of creating efficiency and effectiveness in the irrigation system in the whole country. Second, Punjab, being the major province of the country is also the major part and parcel of the mighty Indus Basin system. There is little likelihood of achieving the objective of effectiveness and efficiency by confining reforms only to Sindh province while, all the ills of previous irrigation system including lack of water convenience efficiency, water losses, improper operation and maintenance continue to haunt the same Indus basin in Punjab, the upper reaches of the system. Besides eroded national base of the NDP reform programme there still seems to be the lack of basic guiding principles of the reforms. The transfer mechanism from the old system to the newly established system is still unclear. For example, in Sindh despite the earlier commitment of replacing Sindh Irrigation Department with SIDA, both SIDA and Irrigation Department are working as parallel bodies in the same irrigation sector and in many cases SIDA has failed in asserting itself. Despite a number of changes in the reform laws and rules especially SIDA Act, there are still ambiguities in the roles, responsibilities and authority of various tiers of reform organization in Sindh i.e. SIDA, area water boards, farmers organizations and water course associations.

Meanwhile, the NDP reform programme also lack proper monitoring and evaluation mechanisms. Although the project documents of the NDP envisage a complete process of monitoring and evaluation of the programme but despite the passage of many years to the reform process, monitoring and evaluation system has still not been developed. The continuity of such a huge project without the process of monitoring and evaluation may result in deviation in the objectives and direction of the project, without even being noticed and corrected.

The issue of rehabilitation of the irrigation system / structures before transferring it to the organizations of participatory management is also one of the key issues, which may hamper the process of reforms. In many countries the management of irrigation has been transferred from the state control to the growers after complete rehabilitation of the system. Because the policy makers those countries thought that it would be difficult and in some cases impossible for the newly created farmers organizations to carry out rehabilitation of the system especially during their initial years due to their limited capacity and financial stability.

However, in Pakistan, the reform process is being carried out without any comprehensive package of rehabilitation of irrigation structures except few individual cases of rehabilitation. This has created many questions in the minds of the people with regard to the success and sustainability of the reforms. It is because they think that it may be difficult for the newly established organizations to carry out rehabilitation due to lack of funds and expertise, making the efficiency and effectiveness of the system doubtful.

The core organizations of the reforms in the irrigation system are the Farmers Organizations (FOs), because key responsibilities of irrigation water distribution as well as collection of irrigation taxes is being handed over to these organizations. Therefore, it was envisaged in the World Bank project documents that more emphasis would be laid on the awareness, social mobilization, expertise, technical know-how, organizational management and other related skills of the growers and their organizations before handing over the irrigation system to them at the distributary level.

The same thing was done, when the pilot project of the establishment of farmer’s organization was implemented by International Irrigation Management Institute (IIMMI) in Sindh. During the pilot project a comprehensive process was adopted with regard to the formation of the farmer’s organizations. The organizations were launched through the process of social mobilization, awareness, and capacity building training to ensure that once established the grower’s organizations would have the capacity, expertise and will to continue as well as further strengthen these organizations. But presently, there seems to be great deviations from the previous trend.

The responsibilities of establishing FOs has been handed over to a public sector department i.e. On-farm Water Management - already discredited due to its inefficiencies in the previous donor funded projects of water management in Sindh. There are reports that in place of due course of awareness social mobilization and proper capacity building through training, OFWM officials usually depend on the influential people of various areas in establishing FOs and in return those influential people are rewarded in the form of handing over important positions of those FOs to them. The task of training for overall capacity building of the reformed institutions including SIDA, AWB, and FOs has been handed over to United Nations Office for Project Services (UNOPS) which has still not established its office in Sindh. Despite the fact that the process of reforms is speedy and ahead in Sindh than all other provinces, UNOPS is implementing its training component in Sindh from Lahore.

Besides, the organizational stability, question of financial sustainability of FOs is also major cause of concern. There are no financial incentives for the FOs in irrigation and drainage management transfer (IDMT) rules. According to the IDMT rules the FOs would have to address the issue of their financial sustainability from the collection of abiana, drainage cess, and the tax on the use of water for non-irrigation purposes. However, according to the terms and conditions of management transfer, FOs after the tax collection have to hand over 60 percent of their collection to the Area Water Boards keeping only 40 percent for them.

In such cases, it seems difficult for the FOs to achieve financial sustainability. According to many FO office-bearers, FOs face problems in running their organizations in such financial resources what to talk about the operation and maintenance and rehabilitation of the system under their control. Similarly, the decision that at first the whole collection would be deposited in the Water Board / SIDA account and later on FOs would be transferred their shares is also bound to create a lot of trouble and delays in the implementation of the various activities of the FOs.

Meanwhile, questions are also being raised on the inadequate representation of the farmers organizations on the secondary and the top levels of the system i.e. Area Water Boards and SIDA as there is only one member of the farmer organizations in the boards of both AWB and SIDA. The lack of presentation of women is also one of the basic questions and concerns of the reforms process, as still not a single woman has become FO member. Therefore, there is doubt about the success of reforms without the participation of half of our population.

It is high time that the institutions and individuals responsible for the implementation of irrigation reforms in Pakistan should give proper consideration to the above-mentioned and other issues and questions related to the NDP reform process and should try to address them for the success of the programme before it is too late. Because the intensity of the damage to the reforms process would be more severe if these questions are not addressed in the initial stages of the reform process.