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Institutional Changes of

Watershed Development

Programmes - India

Archana Raghavan Sathyan

PhD student

Outline

• Introduction

• Watershed concept

• Methodology-Theories

• Institutional arrangements

• Conclusion

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No Food!!!?1 billion

No place to

sleep!

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3/4th

Not even a single

drop to drink!!!!

World population

Increased three times

Human water

consumption

Increased six times

36

Watershed

• ‘Wasserscheide’(German) -‘Water divide’

‘A topographically delineated

area that is drained to a particular

point by a stream system’ (Dixon, 1994)

• Natural boundary

• A stream/channel/water body

• Outlet

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Source: fergusonfoundation.org12/16/2014 7

Main stream

Outlet

Common outlet

point of the

watershed

Major drainage line in

the watershed

Drainage area of the watershed

12/16/2014 8Source: Own compilation

Outline of a watershed

• Mini Watershed - 100 ha

• Micro Watershed - 500 ha

•Sub Micro Watershed - 2500 ha

•Milli Watershed - 5000 ha

•Major Watershed - 10000 ha

•Drainage basin - >10000 ha 9Source: MoRD, GoI

Classification of watershed

(size/scale)

Rain fed area

• 68% of the Total Cropped Area

• 55% of Agricultural Production

(Planning Commission, 2012)

Livelihood to

480 million

people•29 states

•7 UTs

•655 districts

•256000 villages

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Watershed

Management

Natural Resource

Management

Production system

Livelihood support

•Soil

•Water

•Biomass •Area

•Productivity

•Income generation

•Marketing

Source: Own compilation

3-Pong approach

Bunds

Geo-textilesDykes

Check dams

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Farm pond1.Store water

2.Reduce soil erosion

3.Increase ground water

recharge

Retaining wall1.Protect river banks

2.Reduce soil erosion

3. Increase water

recharge

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Recharge well

Roof water

harvesting

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Production system

Livelihood Support System

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Institutions

• Institutions are the constraints that human

beings impose on human interaction. They

constitute formal rules and informal

constraints (North, 1990)

2 kinds

• 1. Formal- State enacted e.g: Constitutions,

common law etc

• 2. Informal-Unwritten rules & norms (Schmid, 2004)

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Sl. No Year Programme Institution Objective

1 1973-74 DPAP MoRD Economic development of drought

prone areas through soil and

water conservation measures

2 1977-78 DDP MoRD Minimise the adverse effect of

drought and deforestation through

reforestation

3 1989-90 IWDP MoRD Regeneration of degraded forest

land through soil and water

conservation measures

4 1990-91 NWDPRA MoA Sustainable NRM - Agricultural

production, restore ecological

balance, generate employment

5 2008-till

date

IWMP MoRD ‘Watershed plus concept’

Table No 1: Chronology of various government WDP in India

Source: Ministry of Rural Development, Govt. of India.12/16/2014 17

Theories of Institutional change

• Institutions are not static, but dynamic!

• Actors seek distributional advantage through

bargaining- access and ownership of actors

to resources (Knight,1992)

• Either by themselves or lobbying government (Libecap, 1989)

• Design new rules consciously to solve

collective action dilemma (Ostrom, 1998)

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The Mechanism Design Theory

emphasize the problem faced by a

principal/planner (Government) in designing

a ‘mechanism’ by which a set of agents with

productive capacities or consumption needs

will interact with one another to yield resource

allocation outcomes (Hurwicz, 1960)

•Individual preferences are not visible (Ananda, 2013)

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Mechanism Design Theory (Hurwicz, Maskin, Myersen)

Contd…

• ‘Mechanism’ - Institutions and rules of the game

• ‘Design’ - New situation with flexibility

• Asymmetric information flow – Technology,

productive capacity and agent's preferences

• Incentive compatibility problem - Lack of

incentives for economic agents

• Revelation principle (Myerson, 1979) - Calculating the

most efficient rule for the game to extract private

information.

• Aim - Efficient allocation of resources within

information gap

12/16/2014 20(Hurwicz, 1960)

Central Watershed Programme Implementation and Review

Committee

State Dept of Rural Development

Multi Disciplinary Teams (MDTs)

WDT

WUGWUGWUG

District Rural Development Agency

State level Watershed Programme

Implementation and Review Committee

Watershed Committee

(WC)

PIA

Figure 2: Institutional framework of watershed programmes before 2001

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State

District

Panchayath

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500million/yr

Fragile

ecosystem

(Ananda, 2013)

Continued

soil

erosion

Role Institution Structure

NRAA

Nodal Agency

PIA

WDT

SLNA

WCDC

WC

MoRD

Multidisciplinary experts-

Agriculture, water management

Chairperson, CEO, NRAA

members, GWB, Dept Experts

Project Manager & subject matter

specialists

Govt .dept, NGOs, voluntary

organisations, PRIs

4 member team

Strategic planning, National

Data Centre

Fund facilitation , allocation

Evaluation

Sanction of WSD

Approve PIA, M&E

Carryout WSD activities

Keep records

Guidance, Resource

development plans &

CPR management

Identify PIA

Capacity building

Technical support,

M&E

SHGs UGs

Figure 3: Institutional framework after ‘Common Guidelines’ (2008)

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11 members

WD Institutions & MDT

• Planner (Government)-Top-down/ Centralised

Public involvement in designing is weak

High technical capacity to process data (so data

cells at the top)

Equipped to deal externalities, increasing returns…

• Decentralised system- communication & information

processing cost less (PRIs –Key actors) (Ananda, 2013)

• PIAs - selected by DWCU (one superior line of

command)

12/16/2014 24(Mookherjee, 2005)

• Economic agents – ‘Landholders’ hide benefit &

actual cost - never disclose true information!!!!

(provided incentives)

• Incentives incompatibility problem –

WD works - 50%

Livelihood activities - 10%

Microenterprises -13%

• Revelation principle gives a weak preference to

Centralised system (Myerson, 1979)

• Design optimal contracts -better communication &

governance multiple scales with less transaction cost

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Contd….

Conclusion

• Failure - Equity & inclusion of marginalised

population

• Spill over effects & coordination across scale-

magnitude (upstream and down streams must be

ascertained)

• Farmers show little enthusiasm - High initial

investments and maintainance cost (incentives-

not match with real cost)

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(Gandhi & Crase, 2012)(Ananda, 2013)

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•Information needs - Present situation,

expected damages & threatening processes

of watershed (PRIs less time)

•Less transparency in PIA & village selection

•Self interest and political economy of the

governments and organisations

Contd….

Thank you

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