Research Reports

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ii

Research Report 69

Tubewell Transfer in Gujarat: A Study of the
GWRDC Approach

Aditi Mukherji and Avinash Kishore

International Water Management Institute
P O Box 2075, Colombo, Sri Lanka



ii

The authors: Aditi Mukherji and Avinash Kishore are junior consultants at the Anand, India office
of the International Water Management Institute (IWMI).

Acknowledgements: The authors wish to acknowledge Dr. Tushaar Shah for suggesting this
study as a potential research area and for his continued guidance throughout the project. The
authors are thankful for the cooperation they received from GWRDC officials, viz.: Mr. V.M.
Yagnik, Managing Director; Mr. K.B. Trivedi, Superintending Engineer; and Mr. R.K. Gandhi and
Mr. R.N. Shah, both engineers at the GWRDC, Anand office. Mr. Anil Shah, Chairman of the
Ahmedabad based NGO, the Development Support Centre read through the paper and
commented on it in great detail. The authors would like to thank him for his time and effort.
Finally, they would like to acknowledge their colleagues at IWMI, Anand for their helpful
comments.

Mukherji, A.; Kishore, A. 2003. Tubewell transfer in Gujarat: A study of the GWRDC approach.
Research Report 69. Colombo, Sri Lanka: International Water Management Institute (IWMI).

/ tubewells / irrigation management transfer / irrigation systems / irrigated farming / groundwater
management / water distribution / water supply / water rates / investment / India / Gujarat /

ISBN: 92- 9090- 515 - 8

ISSN 1026-0862

Copyright © 2003 by IWMI. All rights reserved.

Please send inquiries and comments to iwmi@cgiar.org

IWMI receives its principal funding from 58 governments, private foundations, and
international and regional organizations known as the Consultative Group on International
Agricultural Research (CGIAR). Support is also given by the Governments of Ghana,
Pakistan, South Africa, Sri Lanka, and Thailand.



iiiiii

Contents

Summary               v

Introduction               1

Objectives               2

Data, Sample Selection and Methodology               2

The GWRDC Tubewell-transfer Program               5

Comparison of Performance: GWRDC,

Turned-over and Private Tubewells               8

Comparison of Operational Efficiency               9

Performance of Turned-over Tubewells Before and After Transfer               13

What Encouraged and Impeded Tubewell Transfer?               23

Conclusions and Policy Implications               30

Literature Cited               33



iv



v

Summary

In India, public (government) tubewells were built
with the intention of providing irrigation to all
categories of farmers in a fair, equitable and
affordable manner. However, most public tubewell
programs across India have failed on all these
counts. Efforts to transfer their management to
water users too have met with little success.
Nonetheless, the Gujarat Water Resources
Development Corporation (GWRDC)—a state-owned
public company—has achieved rare success in
tubewell transfer by transferring around 60 percent
of public tubewells in the Gujarat state to user
groups. Though the program was launched in 1988-
1989, it gained momentum only in 1998. This
study analysed the reasons for the sudden turn
around in GWRDC’s tubewell-transfer program and
found that proactive policy changes under a new
management helped the agency achieve rare
success in tubewell transfer, which had so far
eluded them. From 1995-1998, GWRDC
accumulated losses worth Rs 206 million and there
was pressure from the state treasury to close the
corporation. At this juncture, under the leadership
of a dynamic managing director, GWRDC simplified
the transfer process and more importantly set
transfer targets for each section office, thereby
motivating the middle- and lower-level staff to
seriously pursue tubewell transfer. In addition to
policy changes, extreme power shortages and the
stoppage of Mahi canal water gave a further boost
to the process; due to the water and power crisis
situation, GWRDC tubewells became additional
sources of water for irrigation.

However, mere transfer of tubewells to farmer
groups is not indicative of success. Therefore, this
report also evaluated the performance of
transferred tubewells against those owned by
GWRDC and private operators. The findings, based
on a survey of 110 tubewells in Anand district,

suggest that turned-over tubewells perform
significantly better than GWRDC-managed
tubewells and that there is a marked improvement
in their performance after transfer. But one of the
drawbacks of this program has been the lack of
incentives for long-term maintenance of the
tubewells. Some of the clauses of transfer, such
as short leases and the condition that tubewells
must be handed back to GWRDC with all original
parts intact (e.g., with original motor and not an
inferior substitute) and that there should be no
structural damage to the well, discourage farmers
from investing in them.

In spite of its best efforts, GWRDC has been
able to transfer only around 50 percent of its
tubewells in Anand district of Gujarat state. Our
study found that transfer is impeded when
tubewells are in very poor condition as no one
comes forward to take them over. Under such
circumstances, we recommend that GWRDC can
sell off the defunct tubewells and farmers will be
willing to buy these as they come with electricity
connections which are at a premium these days
due to acute power shortages. Conversely, very
good tubewells too cannot be transferred because
various groups lay claim on them and in the
absence of any consensus between groups,
GWRDC cannot hand over such tubewells. We
recommend that GWRDC should auction off the so
called “good” tubewells (defined as those which
operate for more than 2,500 hours a year) to the
highest bidder. This will increase the revenue of
GWRDC and also help minimize disputes among
farmers. Finally, increasing the lease tenure for
existing turned-over tubewells to at least 10 years
will make the program more attractive to farmers
and will also help in ensuring long-term
maintenance of the system.  Given that the
situation in Gujarat is quite unique (both in terms



vi

of relative equity in landholding and centrality of
tubewell irrigation) it is not realistic to conclude
that the GWRDC transfer program can be directly
replicated in other states of India. However, the
lessons learnt from the GWRDC experience are
nevertheless important because other states could
perhaps adapt the GWRDC transfer program
according to their agrarian realities.

Despite its relative success, GWRDC’s
tubewell-transfer program does not qualify as a
classic irrigation management transfer (IMT) case.
In particular, IMT programs are designed to ensure
sustainability of irrigation infrastructure, which

GWRDC does not attempt to do. Similarly, most
IMT programs such as those in Colombia,
Mexico and Turkey focus on governance issues
such as organizational structure and legal rights
and duties of the water users associations
(WUAs), while GWRDC does not concern itself at
all with these issues. Thus, GWRDC’s attempt
does not qualify as IMT in the prevailing sense
of the term and in essence is more in tune with
some rudimentary form of privatization whereby
only the management responsibilities have been
transferred without any long-standing legal
implications.



1

Tubewell Transfer in Gujarat: A Study of the GWRDC
Approach

Aditi Mukherji and Avinash Kishore

Introduction

Government agencies in many countries of the
world have adopted policies to transfer
management of irrigation services to farmer
organizations. This process, commonly called
irrigation management transfer (IMT), has gained
popularity in recent years and is seen as a way of
reducing pressure on precarious government
finances on the one hand and ensuring better
irrigation services on the other. Many Asian
countries such as the Philippines (Wijayaratna and
Vermillion 1994), Indonesia (Vermillion et al. 2000),
Nepal (Mishra and Molden 1996) and Bangladesh
(Mandal and Parker 1995) have undertaken full-
fledged or limited IMT and have met with mixed
results. Latin America, Colombia and Mexico were
pioneers in IMT. In 1976, the Colombian
government turned over management of two canal-
irrigation systems to farmers (Vermillion and
Restrepo 1996). In Mexico, by 1996, the
government had transferred 2.92 million hectare of
canal-irrigated area to farmers, benefiting more
than 88 percent of the service area in over 80
irrigation districts in the country (Johnson III 1997).
New Zealand, on the other hand, took the path of
privatization by selling off government irrigation
systems to farmers, often at a loss to the public
irrigation agency (Farley 1994).

In India, with a view to ensuring equity of
access to groundwater, the government invested
extensively in tubewell construction and
operation. In Gujarat alone, some 4,000

tubewells were constructed by the Gujarat Water
Resources Development Cooperation (GWRDC).
However, in almost all the Indian states, public
tubewell programs failed to provide equitable
groundwater access to users and were also
poorly managed. A number of studies have
analyzed the reasons for the malfunctioning of
public tubewells (Asopa and Dholakia 1983; Pant
1993; Kollavalli and Shah 1993) and have
recommended transferring management of these
tubewells to farmer groups.

The government of Gujarat was one of the
first Indian states to realize the urgency of
streamlining GWRDC and therefore launched the
tubewell-turnover program in 1988-1989. To
begin with, there was hardly any enthusiasm
among the farmers to take over public tubewells.
After the first 5 years of the transfer program,
only 8.5 percent of the tubewells could be turned
over (Kumar 1996). Earlier studies pointed out
varied reasons for the lack of initiative among
farmers (Shah and Bhattacharya 1993; Shah et
al. 1994; Shah 1996). However, after 1998, there
was a sudden increase in the number of
tubewells turned over and by the year 2001
GWRDC had turned over almost 60 percent of
its tubewells to farmers. This sudden increase in
tubewell transfer intrigued us and we decided to
study the tubewell-transfer program, especially
since it was written off as a failure by earlier
studies.



2

Objectives

 The objectives of this report are as follows:

1. To explain the success1 of GWRDC in
handing over tubewell management to
farmers in recent years, especially in
view of the fact that it had failed in its
attempts earlier.

2. To evaluate the performance of turned-
over tubewells and compare them with
those under GWRDC management and
private ownership.

3. To understand the motivation and group
behavior of the farmers who have taken
over management of GWRDC tubewells.

4. To make policy recommendations for
making the turnover process better and
assess whether this could be replicated
in other states.

Data, Sample Selection and Methodology

This report is based on data collected in Anand
district of Gujarat (figure 1). Anand district was
chosen for the study primarily for two reasons. In
Anand, almost 50 percent of the public tubewells
were transferred till 2002. The fact that 50
percent of tubewells still remained with GWRDC
made Anand an ideal district to study as it
provided scope for analyzing not only factors
conducive to transfer but also factors impeding
transfer. The second reason for choosing Anand
is the centrality of tubewell irrigation in the
district, coupled with the fact that this district

along with Kheda2 is the most agriculturally
prosperous in the state.

Based on detailed information provided by
GWRDC on the village-wise location of tubewells
and their current status (whether transferred or
not), we drew a sample of 110 tubewells3 across
43 villages in Anand district. The primary
criterion was to select villages which had both
GWRDC-operated and transferred tubewells so
as to render comparison between the categories
easier. In addition, some tubewells were included
based on secondary criteria such as: electricity

1We have measured the success of GWRDC in terms of two indicators. First the percentage of tubewells transferred and second (in fact
more importantly), how these tubewells have performed vis-à-vis public tubewells.

2Anand district was carved out of Kheda district in 1998-1999.

3Initially, we had chosen 120 tubewells, which included 30 GWRDC tubewells, 50 transferred tubewells and 40 private tubewells. But after
the completion of the survey, 10 questionnaires had to be rejected due to inaccuracies of various kinds. Our final sample stood at 110 with 27
GWRDC tubewells, 48 turned-over and 35 private tubewells.



3

FIGURE 1.
Anand district in the state of Gujarat, India.

charges based on flat tariff;4 one village
panchayat5-managed tubewell;6 few tubewells for
which the farmers themselves showed all the
initiative for taking over without being coaxed by
the GWRDC officials;7 and two tubewells which
were closed8 for over a decade and were taken
over by the groups at a concessionary rent of Rs

1,000 per year.9 These selection criteria were
mutually inclusive of each other in a few cases.
Two groups of respondents were given
questionnaires—the first comprised the service
providers such as the tubewell operator for the
GWRDC tubewell, the chairman or any
management committee member for the

4Flat tariff or horsepower tariff is comparatively rare in the case of GWRDC tubewells. Out of around 300 operating tubewells in Anand dis-
trict, some 20 are flat-tariff tubewells, of which 16 are transferred and the other 4 are still with GWRDC.

5Panchayat is an elected village council which is empowered to take certain decisions on behalf of the village. It is the lowest tier of the three-
tiered panchayati raj system in India—the other two being panchayat samiti (second level) and zilla panchayat (third level).

6Only one tubewell has been taken over by a village panchayat to grow fodder for livestock.

7There were only 6 such tubewells for which the initiative had come from the farmers’ side and all were included in the sample.

8There are four such tubewells, which were closed for a long time and later taken over by farmer groups; two were included in our sample.

9US$1.0 = Indian Rs 48.3 (rate for March 2003).

Anand district



4

transferred tubewell and the tubewell owner for
private tubewells. The second group was “pure”
users who had no involvement in day-to-day
management of the tubewells. Qualitative
information was gathered from farmers in 10 out
of 43 villages. Distribution of all GWDRC,
transferred and defunct tubewells in Anand
district, as well as GWRDC and transferred
tubewells, included in our survey are given in
figure 2. Sources of data include:

1. Secondary data from GWRDC for all
309 operating tubewells in Anand
district.

2. Primary data collected using a
questionnaire for tubewell operators of
GWRDC tubewells, chairmen/secretaries
of the management committees of
turned-over tubewells and owners of

private tubewells for the selected 110
tubewells in 43 villages in Anand district.

3. Qualitative (perception-based) data
collected through a questionnaire was
given to 50 respondents, of whom 8
were directly or indirectly involved in
management of the transferred tubewells,
and another 42 were “pure” users without
any management role. These 50
respondents were randomly selected
from 10 villages.

4. Informal focused group discussions with
water users (of government, private and
transferred tubewells), members of the
management committee of the
transferred tubewells, government
tubewell operators, private tubewell
owners and GWRDC engineers.

FIGURE 2.
Location of sample tubewells (GWRDC and turned-over) and other (GWRDC and turned-over) tubewells in Anand
district.

Not to scale



5

GWRDC is a government-owned company that
was set up in 1971 but only began functioning in
1975. It is one of the four water-resource-related
public companies in Gujarat under the control of
the Secretary of the Ministry of Water
Resources, Government of Gujarat. The original
objectives of GWRDC were to increase the area
under irrigation through installation of
government tubewells and ensure equity in
distribution of water, particularly for resource-
poor farmers (Shah and Ballabh n.d.). The
corporation has constructed over 4,000 tubewells
to date of which around 3,000 are operational. In
addition, GWRDC also undertakes the scientific
assessment of groundwater resources in the
state, though its primary job is to operate and
maintain state-constructed tubewells. However,
after a decade of operation, it was felt that the
corporation would not be financially viable in the
long run, mainly because of high operational
costs (Asopa and Dholakia 1983).

Under increasing pressure from the state’s
political leadership in the late 1980s, GWRDC
decided to turn over tubewells to farmers in the
command area. The tubewell-transfer program
was initiated in 1988-1989. To begin with, the
rent was fixed at a nominal rate of Rs 11 per
year, but in 1998 it was raised to Rs 5,000 per
year. At the outset, the policy of the corporation
was to hand over only inefficiently operating
tubewells—the ones that operated less than 500

hours a year. In 1992-1993, there was a policy
shift and the corporation decided to handover all
tubewells (irrespective of their performance) to
farmer groups that came forward to manage
them. Similarly, the earlier mandatory clause of
forming a cooperative to take over a tubewell
was also relaxed. This clause, however, is still a
part of the turn-over agreement forged between
the corporation and a group of farmers, a
minimum five farmers in the case of an informal
group or juth and 11 farmers in the case of a
cooperative.10 But it is rarely adhered to in
practice. Some of the terms and conditions of
the transfer program are as follows:

1. The tubewell will be given on rental
basis for 1 year to unregistered groups
(juths) of at least five members and for 5
years to a registered cooperative of at
least 11 members against a security
deposit of Rs 5,000 and a rent of Rs
5,000 per year.

2. Before handover, a declaration has to be
signed by at least two-thirds of the
farmers in the command area of the
tubewell declaring that they have no
objection if a certain group of people
(from within the same command) take
over management responsibility of the
tubewell.

10The basic difference between a registered cooperative and an informal group or juth is that while the former has to register itself under the
Gujarat Cooperative Societies Act of 1961, the latter needs no registration. Thus, while the cooperative is a formal legal entity, the juth is not.
Depending on whether the tubewell is taken over by a registered cooperative or a juth, the terms and conditions of agreement differ. For
example, a cooperative gets a five-year lease for the tubewell, while a juth gets a lease of one year only. For forming a juth, a group of five
willing farmers suffices, but for a cooperative, at least 11 farmers have to give their consent. Another difference is related to maintaining a
compulsory bank account and a regular audit of finances by a government auditor. While a cooperative is subject to both these conditions, a
juth is not. However, in every other respect, such as day-to-day operation of the tubewell and mode of water distribution, both function identi-
cally.

The GWRDC Tubewell-transfer Program



6

3.  All members of the juth or cooperative
must be landowners within the command
area of the tubewell.

4. The juth or cooperative will be
responsible for day-to-day operation and
maintenance of the tubewell and will
collect irrigation fees from farmers.

5. Farmers who have defaulted payments to
GWRDC would not be given water by
the juths or cooperatives unless they
clear their dues to GWRDC.

6. Farmers who have taken over the
tubewell have to ensure that they hand
back the tubewells with all parts intact
(e.g., original motor and not an inferior
substitute) and that no structural damage
is caused to the tubewell. In case the
group wants to alter any of the tubewell
installations (such as change motor
capacity, repair distribution pipelines,

etc.), they must obtain prior written
permission from the corporation.

7. If the juth or cooperative does not abide
by the rules laid down by GWRDC, or if
farmers in the command area register
complaints against the juth or
cooperative, after due investigation, the
corporation reserves the right to take
back the tubewell without any prior
notice.

This program gained momentum only during
the last 5 years or so, when almost 60 percent
of the total tubewells were successfully
transferred to farmer cooperatives and juths.
Tables 1 and 2 show details about the number of
tubewells transferred for all districts in Gujarat
and all talukas11 in Anand district. Figure 3
shows the time trend of transfer of tubewells in
Anand district from 1989 to 2002. Tables 1 and 2
and figure 3 show that the pace of tubewell
transfer picked up after 1998.

11Taluka is an intermediate administrative unit in India (also called blocks or mandals in some states). Hierarchically, it lies between a village
and a district. Thus, several villages (40 to 100 or more) form a taluka and a few talukas (6 to 15 or more) form a district. There are eight
talukas in Anand district.

FIGURE 3.
Transfer of GWRDC tubewells to farmer groups, 1989 to 2002.

Source: GWRDC, Anand district office.



7

District name Total number of tubewells Percentage of turned-over tubewells

1994-1995 2000-2001

Ahmedabad 244 5.7 61.1

Anand 312 NA 51.0

Banaskantha 593 8.4 48.2

Baroda 330 7.3 43.0

Bharuch 114 8.8 63.2

Bhavnagar 3 ND 100.0

Gandhinagar 137 3.7 43.8

Junagadh 1 100.0 100.0

Kheda 299 24.4 46.2

Kachchh 140 6.4 96.4

Mehsena 390 13.3 84.1

Narmada 64 NA 39.1

Navsari 3 NA 66.7

Panchmahals 17 5.9 58.8

Patan 281 NA 91.8

Rajkot 4 ND 75.0

Sabarkantha 87 ND 23.0

Surat 10 10.0 40.0

Surendranagar 45 26.7 91.1

The Dangs 1 ND 100.0

Valsad 7 ND 85.7

Total 3,082 8.2 59.8

TABLE1.
Number of tubewells transferred by GWRDC, 1994 and 2001, by district.

Notes: NA stands for not applicable. These districts were created after 1994-95. Anand, Narmada, Navsari and Patan were designated as
new districts in 1998-1999 and were respectively carved out from parts of Kheda, Baroda, Surat and Mehsena districts, respectively.

ND stands for no data. Figures for 1994-95 are based on Kumar 1996 and data from these districts are missing.

Source: GWRDC, Anand district office and Kumar (1996).



8

Comparison of Performance: GWRDC, Turned-over and Private
Tubewells

TABLE 2.
Tubewells transferred by GWRDC in Anand district, 2001, by taluka.

Name of taluka Total Percentage Percentage Percentage

number of of tubewells of tubewells of tubewells

tubewells managed by turned over closed downa

GWRDC to groups

Anand 56 53.6 43.4 3.0

Anklav 51 56.8 32.5 10.7

Borsad 118 43.2 48.5 8.3

Khambat 59 30.5 64.7 4.8

Petlad 49 32.7 58.9 8.4

Sojitra 6 50.0 50 0

Umreth 31 51.6 48.4 0

Total 370 37.4 49.5 13.1

In this section, we will compare the performance
of turned-over tubewells with those that are
under GWRDC management and those that are
privately owned. Vermillion (1997) recommends
that for a good turnover-impact study, there is a
need to compare the systems in terms of certain

performance indicators such as operational
efficiency, financial viability, cost of irrigation to
government and farmers, economic returns to
farmers and quality of maintenance of the
system. Therefore, we will assess the following
in this analysis:12

12The issue of profitability of irrigated farming has not been dealt with primarily because the tubewell transfer has had hardly any impact on
profitability of irrigated agriculture as a whole. This is because public tubewells are small in number compared to private tubewells and, in
general, farmers depend on more than one tubewell for irrigation. After transfer however, there has been a drop in water charges but these
were not substantial enough to make a huge impact on crop economics. On the whole, irrigation charges constitute 15 to 20 percent of the
total input costs, though it is quite difficult to make an accurate calculation given that a large number of tubewell owners are charged a fixed
electricity tariff irrespective of hours of operation.

a. In the Anand district, only 13.1 percent of GWRDC tubewells was closed down, while the average figure for the state is around 25 percent.

This is because most of the tubewells that have been closed down are located in water-scarce north Gujarat and the western districts of

Saurashtra and not in relatively water-abundant areas such as Anand.

Source: GWRDC, Anand district office.



9

1. Operational efficiency, calculated by area
irrigated and hours of operation

2. Financial viability

3. Physical maintenance of the tubewells

This will be carried out with the help of two
kinds of comparisons:

1. With-without analysis

2. Before-after analysis

Equity issues have time and again come
forth in discussions about any successful IMT.
Many scholars have implied that the relatively
well off siphon away the benefits of transfer,
leaving the majority of the poor at their mercy.
This study addresses the issue of equity by
comparing the profiles of farmers who are
beneficiaries of GWRDC and turned-over
tubewells and identify if the interests of the
small and marginal farmers have been
compromised after the transfer of GWRDC
tubewells.

13Capacitors help convert two phase domestic power supply into three phase agricultural power supply. While domestic power (two phase)
is available 24 hours a day, agricultural power (three phase) is supplied only for 8 hours. Therefore, using capacitors, farmers convert two
phase power to three phase so that they can run their tubewells on domestic power supply any time they want. However, this can be done
only for a limited period, as overloading the transformer will lead to burnouts.

14Until 1998-1999, Anand district was a part of the Kheda district.

Comparison of Operational Efficiency

GWRDC, Turned-over and Private
Tubewells

It is expected that management of public
tubewells will be better after turnover for a
variety of reasons. First, repair work will be done
quickly. For example, on average it takes 3 to 8
days to replace a burned motor under GWRDC
management. Once the tubewell is transferred, it
takes only a day or two for the repair work.
Second, delays due to excessive procedures will
be eliminated. For example, the procedure for
getting irrigation water from GWRDC is rather
cumbersome. The farmer must fill in a demand
form in triplicate, submit a copy at the section
office (which might be located 10-20 km from his
village), deposit an advance at a designated

bank, and get water in accordance to a strictly
maintained schedule. When transferred, this
process becomes very simple. Third, given the
widespread rationing of power, transferred
tubewells (especially those with low-power pumps
like 15 or 20 hp) can illegally use capacitors to
increase their hours of pumping,13 and this gives
them a slight edge over GWRDC tubewells.
However, this illegal tapping of electricity can be
done only to a limited extent. Therefore, given a
modicum of managerial skills, along with incentive
to economize, and some tampering with rules, a
turned-over tubewell will perform much better than
a GWRDC-operated one.

Anand and Kheda districts14 have a long
tradition of groundwater-based irrigated
agriculture. In every village, for every one or two



10

GWRDC tubewells, there are 15-20 private
tubewells. These figures could be higher if the
village is large or prosperous. Private well
operators sell water. According to an estimate,
tubewell companies of Mehsana district earned
gross returns of around Rs 70,000 per tubewell
per year and their net returns were in the range
of Rs 26,000 per tubewell per year in the 1991-
1992 period (Shah 1996). At the state level,
while there are over 2 million wells and
tubewells, GWRDC’s share in it is a mere 3,000
tubewells, thus making it a small player, with
hardly any impact on the overall groundwater
situation in the state. Thus, the justification for
tubewell transfer is not as much to improve the

groundwater management situation in the state,
but more to recover the already invested capital
of the government for better use. In this
scenario, if turned-over tubewells also serve
farmers better than public tubewells, the transfer
program can be said to have adequately met its
objective. Table 3 shows the comparative
performance of GWRDC and turned-over
tubewells for the 1999–2001 (based on data
obtained from GWRDC) and table 4 shows the
comparative performance of GWRDC, turned-
over, and private tubewells (based on a sample
survey of 110 tubewells in Anand district).

In Anand district, GWRDC tubewells
operated for only 1,450 hours a year compared

TABLE 3.
Comparison of basic performance indicators between GWRDC and turned-over tubewells, Anand district, 1999-2001.

Tubewell Number of Planned Horsepower Discharge                     1999-2000                          2000-2001

status tubewells Command (m3/hour) Area Hours Area Hours

area (ha) irrigated operated irrigated operated

(ha) (ha)

GWRDC 155 98 25 117 42 1,435 44.4 1,481

Turned-over 149 97 24 116 54 1,569 57.7 1,631

Tubewell 2000-2001

status Sample Horsepower Average Average Average

size (No. of depth of gross hours of

tubewells) tubewell irrigated operation

(feet) area (ha)

GWRDC 27 26 383 43 1,440

Turned-over 48 20 380 60 1,698

Private 35 14 275 25 1,841

All 110 20 346 43 1,567

TABLE 4.
Comparison of basic performance indicators: GWRDC, turned-over and private tubewells, Anand district, 2000-2001.

Source: Based on data provided by GWRDC Anand district and Borsad taluka offices.

Source: Primary survey of 110 tubewells in 43 villages in the Anand district.



11

to 1,600-1,700 hours for turned-over tubewells,
while private tubewells operated for more than
1,800 hours. Given that there are 8,760 hours in
a year, the above figures might seem very low.
However, one has to keep in mind that in
Gujarat, agricultural power supply is available
only for 8-10 hours per day—that too in an
erratic fashion. This seriously limits the number
of hours of pumping. Turned-over tubewells also
irrigate more area than either GWRDC or private
tubewells. Private tubewells with much lower
horsepower and bore depth, run longer than
either GWRDC or turned-over tubewells. This
can be partly attributed to the profit motive of the
private tubewell owners, and to the fact that they
are able to use capacitors to increase the
effective power availability for pumping. The
main constraint for the turned-over tubewells is
their poor condition. In many instances, the
outlets are broken and the farmers, because of
the short lease tenure, do not think it wise to
repair them. One interesting aspect is the
mismatch between planned command area and
actual area irrigated as seen in table 3. First,
there is a certain amount of overestimation of the
command area of tubewells in the first place,
partly due to usual governmental compulsions of
showing inflated command area figures (a similar
problem is seen in canal commands as well) and
partly due to inappropriate siting of tubewells in
certain cases. But more important than this is
the fact that over the years, many private
tubewells have come up in areas adjacent to the
functional command area of public tubewells
and, given that GWRDC’s service is inferior to
private tubewell operators’ service, actual
irrigated area fell much shorter than the planned
command area. In addition, over the years,
underground distribution pipelines and surface
outlets have deteriorated in the absence of any
civil repairs15 by GWRDC, thereby further limiting

the command area. This has lead to
distributional inefficiencies.

Some background about irrigated agriculture
in general and tubewell irrigation in particular in
Anand district will be relevant in this context.
This region is highly dependent on tubewell
irrigation. Tubewells are the sole source of
irrigation water during rabi (short winter
cultivation season) as well as the summer
cultivation season. Tubewell water is used for
supplementary irrigation in kharif (long monsoon-
based cultivation season). Tubewell water is also
used conjunctively with canal water in many of
the villages in Anand district, as it falls within the
command area of a large canal-irrigation scheme
called the Mahi-Kadana project. However, since
1999, due to various reasons, canal water has
not reached any of the villages included in our
sample. The main crops grown in this district are
paddy, tobacco and coarse cereals in the kharif
season, tobacco and wheat in the rabi season
and banana throughout the year. In terms of
area, tobacco, paddy and banana are the three
most important crops. All these crops are water
intensive and need at least 5 to 7 irrigations
during the growing season. Rabi tobacco needs
10 to 12 irrigations and the banana crop is
irrigated 35 to 40 times in a year. Time needed
to irrigate one hectare varies from 5 hours for
coarse cereals such as pearl millet or bajri to 15
hours for paddy. In all the three management
regimes, water is distributed on a rotational
basis, mostly on a “first-come-first-served” basis.
This aspect of water distribution and scheduling
will be dealt with in greater detail later. As
already mentioned, tubewells are the backbone
of irrigated agriculture in Anand district. GWRDC
tubewells as well as private tubewells have a
depth ranging from 200 feet to over 500 feet,
depending on the location of the tubewell. A
majority of the tubewells are powered by electric

15GWRDC carries out two types of repair, electrical repairs (motor burn-outs, short circuits, etc.) and civil repairs, which means brick and
mortar work for repairing storage tanks, the building in which the tubewell is housed, the outlet vent, etc. GWRDC has not done such brick
and mortar repairs for the last 10 years and now carries out only electrical repairs.



12

pumps ranging from 10 to 40 horsepower (hp).
All tubewells have underground distribution pipes
spread across a radius of 0.5 to 2 km. There is
an overhead tank to which water is first lifted.
From this tank water is distributed through
underground pipelines to various fields. There
are strategically located water outlets as well as
air vents spread across the command area of a
tubewell. In terms of physical features, private
tubewells are similar to GWRDC tubewells,
except that the former have generally lower
depths and lower pump horsepower. Figure 4 is
a schematic diagram of a typical tubewell
command in Anand district.

We ran a regression with a dummy variable
(GWRDC vs. turned-over tubewells) using
secondary data provided by GWRDC to see the
impact of transfer of tubewells on basic
performance indicators such as area irrigated

and hours operated. We formulated our model so
that the area irrigated (ha) by a tubewell was a
function of the hours of operation of the tubewell
with the dummy variable indicating whether it is
a GWRDC tubewell or a turned-over one. Since
the same set of tubewells was considered
(before and after transfer), the need to control
pump horsepower did not arise. The result is
shown in table 5. Turned-over tubewells irrigate
a significantly higher area than GWRDC
tubewells, the areas being 17 and 9.5 ha,
respectively. The negative coefficient of the
interaction between the dummy variable and
hours of operation shows that turned-over
tubewells take marginally less time to irrigate the
same amount of land. This further confirms our
overall finding that turned-over tubewells have
performed better than GWRDC tubewells in
terms of hours of irrigation and area irrigated.

FIGURE 4.
Schematic diagram of a typical tubewell command of a public tubewell in Anand district.

Not to scale



13

Performance of Turned-over Tubewells Before and After Transfer

TABLE 5.
Determinants of area irrigated by GWRDC and turned-over tubewells in Anand district, 1999-2001.

Variables Regression coefficient

Hours of operation in an year (X1) 0.02306* (0.678)

Dummy, D (0 = GWRDC; 1 = Turned-over) 17.047* (0.365)

D*X1 -0.004626** (-0.182)

Intercept 9.510*

R2 0.461

Number of observations 596

Notes: * and ** indicate coefficients significant at 1 and 5 percent levels of significance, respectively, for the two tailed t-test.

Figures in parenthesis are standardized beta values.

Source: Based on data provided by GWRDC Anand district and Borsad taluka offices.

Before-after comparisons are a must for
analyzing the impact of any IMT, because they
give us an idea of how the system performed
before it was turned-over. At times, it so happens
that the so-called “good” systems (i.e., the ones
that have already been working well) are
transferred first and comparing their performance
with the “not so good” systems that were not
transferred distorts the picture in favor of turned-
over systems. Before-after analysis of the same
set of systems helps in making a fair evaluation
of the impact of transfer. Table 6 sums up the
basic performance indicators of the turned-over
tubewells for two years before turnover and the
last two years after transfer. Since the tubewells
were transferred in different years, the before
data does not refer to the same years in every
case, while the after data relates to the last two
irrigation years, viz., 1999-2000 and 2000-2001.
Table 6 clearly brings out the improvement in
basic performance indicators of the tubewells
after they were transferred. While interpreting
this data, one has to keep in mind that the
performance of all tubewells, including GWRDC
tubewells, has been better in the last two years

owing to higher water demand generated by the
stoppage of Mahi canal water. Even after
discounting this factor, turned-over tubewells
have performed much better in terms of area
irrigated and hours operated after transfer.
Before transfer, the average irrigated area was
only 35 to 39 ha, but in the last two years (1999-
2001) it was 54 to 58 ha, an increase of almost
55 percent (figure 5). Even the maximum hours
of operation have increased from less than 2,000
hours or so to more than 3,000 hours after
transfer (figure 6).

Some 50 farmers chosen randomly from 10
villages were asked, among other things, their
perception about the adequacy and timeliness of
irrigation water supply before and after transfer.
Of these, eight were directly or indirectly
associated with the management of the tubewell
(as chairman or member of the management
committee) and were therefore service providers.
In order to remove any possible positive bias
that might creep in if they were asked to assess
their own services, they were taken out of the
sample and our findings are based on 42 “pure”
users, who were in no way associated with the



14

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15

FIGURE 5.
Average gross irrigated area before and after transfer.

FIGURE 6.
Average hours of operation before and after transfer.

Source: Based on data obtained from GWRDC Anand district and Borsad taluka offices.

Source: Based on data obtained from GWRDC Anand district and Borsad taluka offices.



16

provision of the service. Around 57 percent of
the users reported that adequacy of water was
better after transfer, while 67 percent reported
improvement in timeliness after transfer. Figures
7 and 8 show the farmer responses about
timeliness and adequacy of service before and
after transfer.

Financial Implications

One of the major objectives of the turn-over
program was to reduce the huge financial losses
incurred by GWRDC. It is expected that IMT will
save money for the government as GWRDC
divests itself of the responsibility to finance
routine costs of operation and maintenance
(O&M) of irrigation systems (Vermillion 1997). At
the same time, farmers who have taken over the
tubewells would be expected to make profits, as
their overhead costs would be much lower than
that of government agencies. We have analyzed
the financial returns of tubewells under three
different management regimes: GWRDC, turned-
over (both cooperative and juth) and private. We
have also analyzed the returns under two power
tariff systems, flat rate and unit rate. Table 7

FIGURE 7.
Farmer perception on adequacy of irrigation supply from tubewell before and after transfer.

summarizes our findings. Figure 9 clearly shows
that GWRDC tubewells make huge losses, which
are certainly more than what is reported here,
because we have not included overheads at the
office level. On an average, a GWRDC tubewell
incurs an expenditure of Rs 70,000-90,000 while
it earns only Rs 40,000-60,000. Expenditure for
each category of tubewell is calculated under
three heads: electricity bill, operator’s salary and
repair and maintenance work undertaken in
2000-2001. The operator’s salary component of
GWRDC is as high as Rs 60,000 per tubewell
(at Rs 5,000 per month per operator).
Incidentally, GWRDC’s gross revenue is one of
the highest among all the categories. This is
attributable to the higher water rates charged by
the corporation as compared to others. Figure 10
shows the average water rates for different
categories of tubewells. At the other extreme are
private tubewell operators, who charge the least
rates and earn the maximum profits of around
Rs 30,500 per tubewell. This is because they
incur much less expenditure on O&M and pay
lower electricity bills as most of them have flat-
rate connections with smaller pump sets (14 hp).
Moreover, private tubewells are generally newer
and in better condition. Quite predictably,

Note: Based on responses of 42 “pure” users in 10 villages.



17

FIGURE 8.
Farmer perception on timeliness of irrigation supply from tubewell before and after transfer.

metered-tariff tubewells earn less profit than flat-
tariff ones, the average being Rs 19,000 and Rs
24,000, respectively. Based on table 7, water
charges work out to approximately Rs 1,172 per
hectare and Rs 877 per hectare for GWRDC and
turned-over tubewells, respectively. Expressed in
terms of water charge per cubic meter of water,
the corresponding figures are Rs 3.3 and Rs 3.7,
respectively (estimated discharges for GWRDC
and turned over tubewells are 117 m3/hour and
116 m3/hour, respectively—see table 3). Though
water charge per cubic meter has gone up very
marginally, the total irrigation expenditure of
farmers has gone down because area-wise (per
hectare) charges have decreased significantly
after transfer.

Two measures of success of turnover
programs are the reduction in cost of irrigation to
the public agency and increased profitability to
farmers to whom the system has been handed
over. This transfer qualifies to be called
“successful” on both counts. GWRDC saves Rs
20,000 to Rs 35,000 on repair and electricity bills
of these systems per year besides earning an

annual rent of Rs 5,000, which brings up the
savings to Rs 25,000 to 40,000 per tubewell per
year. According to present top-level GWRDC
officials (Trivedi and Yagnik 2002),16 in the three
financial years preceding 1998, GWRDC as a
whole had incurred a cumulative loss of around
Rs 206 million. However, after renewed
emphasis on the tubewell-transfer program as
well as other cost-cutting ventures such as
voluntary retirement schemes, curtailment of
contingent expenditure, etc., GWRDC was able
to register a modest profit of Rs 91,000 in 1998-
1999 and Rs 24 million in 1999-2000.

Profitability to farmers, too, has seen a
positive change. First, the water users (as well
as service providers because they too are users)
pay lower hourly rates, and second, the service
providers earn profits ranging from Rs 18,000 to
20,000 per tubewell per year. In most cases,
profits are not distributed among cooperative or
juth members, but are retained as a corpus fund
to be used for repair and maintenance work,
especially the ones involving heavy expenditure.
The managers of turned-over tubewells earn less

16K.B. Trivedi and V.M. Yagnik are Superintending Engineer and Managing Director of GWRDC, respectively.

Note: Based on responses of 42 “pure” users in 10 villages.



18

profit than private tubewell owners because they
have to spend considerably higher amounts on
repair and maintenance of old GWRDC
tubewells. However, if they have a secure lease
for over 5 years or so, they could invest more on
proper maintenance of the tubewells and recover
their capital costs through selling greater
volumes of water. The importance of a longer
lease is partially indicated by the relatively higher
profits earned by the cooperatives compared to
juths (table 7).

Quality of Operation and Maintenance

One of the important reasons cited for IMT is
that it improves the quality of O&M of irrigation
infrastructure (Vermillion 1997). In our study, we
have tried to evaluate the O&M of the tubewells
before and after transfer by posing qualitative
questions to our respondents. We also inspected

some of the tubewells under GWRDC
management and some turned-over and private
tubewells. On the whole, it emerged quite clearly
that farmers perceived GWRDC tubewells being
worse off in terms of repair and maintenance.
Based on our questionnaire survey, we found
that during the 2000-2002 period, a GWRDC
tubewell has broken down on average three
times and every time it took 3-8 days to repair it.
The number of days needed to repair were only
2.5 and 1.7 for turned-over and private tubewells,
respectively. Similarly, a majority of the farmers
felt that maintenance of tubewells improved after
they were turned-over to farmers. GWRDC has
stopped all civil repairs for the last 10 years. A
few of the tubewells we visited were in a
dilapidated condition, with leaks in the overhead
storage tank and broken outlets. One group in
the Navakhal village returned the tubewell to
GWRDC because of its poor physical state.
Since the lease time is only 1 year at a time,

2000-2001

Category Sample Horsepower Area Hours Water Average Average Net

size irrigated operated charge revenue O&M profit

(ha) (Rs/hour) (Rs) costs (Rs) (Rs)

Based on management regime

GWRDC 27 26 43 1,440 35 55,953 82,476 -29,631

Turned-over 48 20 60 1,698 31 55,156 35,204 +19,219

Cooperative 16 22 58 1,497 30 58,584 35,686 +20,668

Juth 32 19 55 1,570 30 50,150 33,889 +18,495

Private 35 14 25 1,841 25 49,483 18,445 +30,511

Based on tariff system (does not include those tubewells operated by GWRDC)

Flat-rate 32 18 46 1,682 27 44,746 20,394 +24,353

Metered 51 20 56 1,792 32 59,091 39,867 +19,225

TABLE 7.
Details of net and gross income for various categories of tubewells, 2000-2001, Anand district.

Note: Average O&M costs include electricity charges, operator’s salary and repair and maintenance costs undertaken in the year 2000-01.

Source: Primary survey in 43 villages and 110 tubewells in Anand district.



19

FIGURE 9.
Gross returns, operating costs and net returns (Rs) for various categories of tubewells, 2000-2001.

FIGURE 10.
Average water rates for different categories of tubewells (Rs/hour).

Source: Primary survey in 43 villages and 110 tubewells in Anand district.

Source: Primary survey in 43 villages and 110 tubewells in Anand district.



20

farmers do not want to invest in fixed assets
such as repair of water distribution networks or
punctured bores, as they are not sure if they can
recover these costs. However, farmers are
prompt enough to change and repair the pump
motor as and when needed because they can
disconnect the pump from the tubewell and sell it
off in case the lease is not renewed. A majority
of the farmers (67%) thought that the tubewells
were better maintained after turnover, while only
2 percent thought that maintenance was better
before turn over (figure 11).

We also studied management practices such
as norms for distributing and scheduling water,
payment of water fees, penalties imposed for
non-payment and conflict-resolution mechanisms
adopted by these three management regimes.
The most obvious differences surfaced between
the GWRDC rules for procuring water and those
for turned-over and private tubewells. As already
explained, GWRDC follows a cumbersome
process for water allocation. Besides, it insists
on advance deposits to be paid at a designated
bank. Against this, a farmer is issued a water

indent form. Thus, a farmer has to travel to the
nearest GWRDC office at least twice every
irrigation season to get his allocation sanctioned.
After this, he has to show the water indent form
to the government tubewell operator in his village
and get water according to a strictly maintained
irrigation schedule. Problems arise when the
tubewell operator is not available at his post,
which is quite a common phenomenon. After
transfer, water allocation becomes simple. All
that a farmer needs to do is to walk down to the
chairman (of the tubewell committee) or the
operator’s house and book his irrigation time.
Generally, a first-come-first-served principle is
followed for water distribution in all the three
management regimes. While GWRDC follows a
strict water schedule, it is much more flexible in
private and turned-over tubewells because
schedules can be rotated through mutual
understanding. Water charges are generally paid
only at the end of the irrigation season and after
crop harvesting. However, the option of paying in
small installments is open to farmers buying
water from private or turned-over tubewells.

FIGURE 11.
Farmer perception of tubewell maintenance before and after transfer.

Note: Based on responses of 42 “pure” users in 10 villages.



21

GWRDC, on the other hand, offers credit for two
irrigation seasons, but starts levying a 12 percent
interest on the outstanding balance from the third
season, after which, if repayment is not
complete, it stops water all together. Though
bribing is not a major issue, cases where a
farmer has given a sack of rice or potato to a
GWRDC official in return for some favors is not
unknown. In one of the villages, farmers told us
that they once got together and collected money
to bribe an official so that a quick repair to the
pump could be done to save a standing crop of
tobacco. Repairing pumps is a major problem in
GWRDC tubewells. First, the farmers have to
report the damage (if the operator has not
already done so), then an engineer visits the
site, assess the damage and sends the pump for
repair to the single GWRDC-owned workshop in
the district. Predictably, it takes 3 to 8 days for a
pump to be repaired. Under private or group
management, repair is done faster through
private mechanics.

However, the GWRDC tubewell-transfer
program has a number of restrictions that
impedes long-term sustainability in terms of
good maintenance of the systems. As of now,
the farmers only incur damage-control type of
expenditure (such as repairing a burnt motor)
and do not invest in improving the system. The
reasons for this lie in the rather restrictive
terms and conditions imposed by GWRDC,
such as a short and relatively insecure lease
and the condition that the tubewell must be
handed back to GWRDC with the original parts
intact and that there should not be any
structural damage. Similarly, there is no
requirement that the lease holders plough back
some of their profit for maintaining and
improving the system, which is in contrast to
the system in China (Johnson III et al. 1996)
where lease holders have to agree to invest a
certain amount either in cash or labor to
improve the system. This could lead to serious
sustainability problems in the future.

Collective Action and Group Dynamics

GWRDC had envisaged the entire transfer
program in a participatory management mode.
The clause which stipulates that at least 5 to 11
villagers must form a juth or a cooperative
before the tubewell can be handed over shows
that the agency tried to encourage group
management of these tubewells. Similarly, rules
were laid down to encourage participation of
people from backward castes and tribes as well
as women through their compulsory inclusion in
the management committee of the tubewells.
Therefore, in our study, we wanted to examine
the group behavior of farmers managing these
turned-over tubewells. However, in the course of
our extensive field work, we found that in most
cases, the groups formed are merely “dummy”
groups—while the locus of control lay with one
or two key persons. These key persons took all
the initiatives, from taking care of all the
legalities of transfer to the collection of required
funds for transfer (in many cases, they bore this
expenditure themselves and recovered it from
water charges), and looking after the day-to-day
operation of the tubewell once it was transferred.
The key persons, as we shall see later, were not
necessarily the largest land owners, but were
more frequently entrepreneurial farmers seeking
profit and prestige. Our conversations with
dormant members of the management committee
and other water users revealed that the majority
of them were quite satisfied with the
arrangement as it meant hassle-free irrigation.

 This informal and often undemocratic way
(because it is not under the control of all the
users) of managing juths and cooperatives does
not pose any serious problems in tubewell
management in most instances. This can be
partly explained by the rules and regulations laid
down by GWRDC, which stipulate that the
management committees of turned-over
tubewells have to supply water to all farmers in
the command area in an unbiased way. As and



22

when complaints arise, GWRDC officials
promptly visit the site and try to solve problems
amicably. In most cases, this amicable arbitration
by GWRDC officials works. In cases where it
does not work, GWRDC cancels the transfer
agreement and takes back the tubewell. The
threat of losing the tubewell after paying the rent
and electricity bills discourages the management
committee members from playing foul. Besides,
this region has a long history of water markets
and there are established mechanisms for
sorting out irrigation-related problems and this
makes conflict resolution easier and the
intervention of GWRDC less necessary.

Equity Issues

Concerns about equity and provision of irrigation
to the resource poor were reasons for
government investment in public tubewells.
However, it is apparent that the government has
not succeeded in either of these. In Anand, for
example, hourly water rates of GWRDC
tubewells are considerably higher than those of
private water sellers. It is often feared that
through programs such as tubewell transfer, the
relatively better-off farmers will usurp benefits,
creating adverse effects on the resource poor.
An analysis of the land size of beneficiaries of
turned-over and GWRDC tubewells shows that
turned-over tubewells performed better in terms
of selling water to small and marginal farmers
than government tubewells. Our interviews with
the management committee members revealed
that they were under constant pressure to sell
water so as to recover the initial costs like rent,
deposit to GWRDC, repair costs, etc. In the
event that they cannot sell water to cover all
these costs, they have to share the losses
among themselves. In Anand district, the
average landholding size is less than one
hectare and large landholdings are rare. In our
sample, none of the farmers, (not even the
chairmen of the managing committees) had large

landholdings. Had it been so, there might have
been a possibility of monopolizing the asset.
However, given that most landholdings are small, it
becomes imperative on the part of the committee
to sell water to all to recover the initial investment.

Water rates also decline once the tubewells
are turned-over. An earlier study in the district
found that water rates had dropped from Rs 25
per hour to Rs 15 per hour in Anand district after
turnover (Shah et al. 1994). Our study confirms
this finding, water rates dropped after turnover
from an average of Rs 35 per hour to Rs 30 per
hour. This is certainly beneficial to all farmers,
more so to poor farmers. Table 8 shows the
number of farmers served and the percentage of
farmers served in each category based on the
survey. After transfer, not only does a tubewell
serve a greater number of farmers in its
command area, but the representation of small
and marginal farmers also goes up. Even in the
management committee of turned-over tubewells,
almost 72 percent of the members have less
than 1 ha of land in the command area, while
another 23 percent have landholdings between 1
and 2 ha and only 5 percent have landholdings
between 2 and 10 ha. None of the farmers in our
survey area had land-holdings of more than 10
ha. However, in areas where landholding
disparity is very pronounced (Bihar, Orissa,
Rajasthan), there is a distinct possibility that
turned-over tubewells might be captured by the
rural elite and the poor might be excluded.

The tubewell-transfer program seems to
have satisfied almost all criteria suggested by
Vermillion (1997) to be called a “success.” One
significant exception to this is the long-term
maintenance of the asset. Without any explicit
provisions or incentive for maintenance of the
turned-over tubewells, it is unlikely that the
farmers will invest in them and it is likely that
after 5 to 10 years most transferred tubewells
may deteriorate further. However, on the whole,
the turned-over tubewells have performed better
than the GWRDC-owned tubewells in terms of
operational, financial and equity indicators.



23

TABLE 8.
Number and category of farmers served by GWRDC and turned-over tubewells, Anand district, 2001.

Category Sample size Average number of Percentage of Percentage of Percentage of Percentage of

(number of tubewells farmers served marginal farmers small farmers medium farmers large farmers

surveyed) per tubewell (less than 1 ha) (1-2 ha) (2-10 ha) (above 10 ha)

per tubewell per tubewell per tubewell per tubewell

GWRDC 27 26.5 76.2 18.2 5.6 0

Turned-over 48 35 83.9 14.8 1.3 0

Source: Based on a primary survey of 27 GWRDC and 48 turned-over tubewells in Anand district.

What Encouraged and Impeded Tubewell Transfer?

Why was 1998 “decisive”?

From 1998 onwards, there was a sudden
increase in the number of tubewells that were
turned-over in Anand district as well as in the
whole of Gujarat (figure 3). This leads one to ask
what exactly happened around this time that led
to a dramatic rise in the number of turned-over
tubewells. This also leads to the first objective of
the study—to analyze the reasons for the sudden
increase in farmer groups who were willing to
take over the management of tubewells,
especially when they were not so willing earlier.
Our analysis based on conversations with
GWRDC officials, Gujarat Electricity Board
officials, and most importantly the farmers,
helped us identify three probable reasons for this
phenomenon. The first reason, (probably the
main reason) was the policy shift in GWRDC

under a new management17 which pursued
tubewell transfer with commitment. The second
reason was the increasing power crisis in rural
areas, while the third was the sudden stoppage
of Mahi canal water from 1999. The three
reasons are enumerated in detail below.

1. GWRDC’s commitment to transfer (only
after 1998).

GWRDC initiated the turn-over scheme
in 1989 under pressure from the
government to reduce its financial
losses. However, it seems that that top
management had not internalized the
need for doing so. To compound the
problems, turn-over procedures and
conditions were not lucrative enough in
the beginning. The insistence on forming

17Mr. M.S. Patel, the present Water Resources Secretary of the Government of Gujarat, was appointed Managing Director of GWRDC around
this time. He was instrumental in formulating target-oriented marketing policies, which eventually turned around the transfer program from a
usual lackadaisical government program to a dynamic, and one of the most effective programs of tubewell transfer ever launched in India.



24

cooperatives18 and not supplying water to
those who had defaulted payments to
GWRDC took its toll on the schemes’
overall performance in the initial years.
Fortunately, GWRDC learnt from this
experience and relaxed the rule about
compulsory formation of cooperatives in
1993. However, the turning point came in
1998, when under a new and dynamic
management GWRDC started setting
targets for each section office. This was
done because it was realized that if the
business-as-usual attitude continued,
GWRDC would face a real threat of
being discontinued. As already
mentioned, GWRDC’s financial status
became precarious in the years
preceding 1998. At this juncture, there
was increasing pressure from the state
treasury to discontinue GWRDC. In this
context, the section officers (middle-
level staff) were asked to turn over
tubewells to farmers and to pursue
these targets in earnest. This is one of
the central principles of any successful
turnover program—the commitment of
the agency to turn over irrigation
systems to farmers.

2. The deteriorating power situation in
Gujarat.

Like most other state electricity boards,
Gujarat Electricity Board too incurs huge
losses, which have reached an almost
unsustainable level. The agricultural
power supply has been severely curtailed
and power is provided only for 8 hours a
day, but uninterrupted power is available
only for 4-5 hours in a day. Coupled with
this is the difficulty in getting new

electricity connections for tubewells. GEB
has two schemes under which it
sanctions new connections. One is the
normal procedure, under which a farmer
gets a flat-rate connection but after a
waiting period of up to 10 years. The
other is the tatkal or instant connection,
under which the farmer has to bear the
full cost of the connection, including the
cost of electric wires to the poles and
even new transformers if need be. The
expenses are prohibitively high and the
waiting period is between 6 months and
2 years. In this scenario, taking on rent a
GWRDC tubewell that already has an
electric connection seems a very good
and sensible option for farmers. The last
three drought years (2000 to 2002) also
made it imperative for the farmers to
accumulate as much pump capacity as
they could. Strict rationing of power
coupled with the difficulty in getting new
connections and the assurance about
continued (though rationed) power supply
are enough incentives to farmers to take
over GWRDC-operated wells.

3. Stoppage of Mahi right bank canal
(MRBC) water.

Most of Anand district falls within the
command area of the MRBC, a large
irrigation canal. However, for a variety of
reasons, MRBC water has been stopped
from 1999. This has led to a sudden
increase in demand for tubewell irrigation
and even the GWRDC-managed
tubewells have operated for more hours
in the 2000-2002 period (almost 50%
more). Due to the stoppage of canal
water, tubewells have become more

18Registering a cooperative is a very cumbersome business in most parts of India due to the legal hassles involved and the almost arbitrary
powers of the registrar, which puts the cooperative at his mercy.



25

central to irrigated agriculture. This
certainly explains why turnover has
witnessed an increased pace in recent
years.

Strengths of the GWRDC Tubewell-
Transfer Program

The GWRDC tubewell-transfer program has a
few in-built merits that possibly led to the
increase in the number of successful transfers at
a time when many other states have failed to
implement similar programs. Perhaps the most
important strength of the program is the
responsiveness of the GWRDC officials to
farmers’ demands and their ability to modify the
program as and when needed. The merits of the
GWRDC transfer program are given below.

1. Simple process: GWRDC adopted a very
simple, quick and direct process for
transfer. This involved an application for
taking over the tubewell from the
farmers’ side and the entire transfer
process could be completed within 10 to
15 days, without the farmers having to
visit the GWRDC office even once. In
most IMT programs, considerable time
and effort are spent to form water users
associations and capacity building
among farmers to manage the systems.
However, GWRDC did not follow this
long and often-unsuccessful process and
decided to turn over the tubewells
directly to user groups.

2. Flexible approach: GWRDC kept learning
from its experiences and making
changes in the process wherever
necessary.  Its initial insistence on
forming cooperatives was diluted in later
years when they realized that farmers
were not willing to register themselves
into a formal cooperative. Instead, it

allowed any informal group or juth to
take over a tubewell. This helped in
overcoming  farmer inhibitions and
speeding up the turnover process.
GWRDC’s transfer policy still favors
cooperatives by giving them the
management authority for a tubewell for
5 years while juths have to get their
lease renewed every year. Yet, in this
case, farmers prefer independence to
security, which is evident from the fact
that of 149 tubewells transferred in
Anand district, 109 (73.15%) were taken
over by juths while only 40 (26.85%)
were taken over by registered
cooperatives. This is because farmers
perceive (perhaps truly) that registering
into a cooperative increases transaction
costs several times and brings them
under the ambit of the often arbitrary
powers of the registrar and other
government officials.

3. Low interference: Once a group takes
over a tubewell, it enjoys total freedom in
O&M. There is hardly any interference
from GWRDC in day-to-day affairs. The
group is free to appoint its own operator,
design the irrigation schedule, undertake
repair and maintenance, and even
replace the pump set with a new one of
different make and capacity. It can adopt
a different pricing system and revise
water prices. This kind of autonomy
builds a sense of ownership and
encourages farmers to invest in the
systems to improve viability and
performance.

4. Good monitoring: The group is required
to maintain daily records of power
consumed, area and crop irrigated and
total water pumped in a simple format
prescribed by GWRDC. This data is
presented to the local GWRDC office



26

every fortnight. It helps in monitoring the
performance of the particular tubewell
and tubewell performance at an overall
level. Monitoring is also done to ensure
that the groups do not sell water to
farmers who have not cleared their
earlier dues to GWRDC and that they do
not defer or default on electricity bill
payment. The monitoring process is
“smart and simple” and it does not cramp
the mode of functioning of the group, but
at the same time serves GWRDC’s
purpose very well.

5. Relatively secure lease: Though the
lease is for one year, in most cases the
lease gets renewed if the group performs
well. The agreement is terminated only in
rare cases when a group fails to pay its
electricity bills or does not resolve
conflicts and grievances within the group.
This security of lease gives the
necessary credence and authority to the
groups in their domain and sends
positive signals to beneficiaries in
command areas of other tubewells to
come forward for take-over.

6. No encumbrances: Many IMT projects
have failed to take off because
governments tried to pass off their
accumulated losses and dues to the new
owner. For example, the Orissa Lift
Irrigation Cooperative (OLIC) has huge
electricity dues on each of its units and
any agency that wants to take over these
units have to clear a part of these dues
before power connection is restored and
systems become functional. This is one
of the biggest deterrents to the transfer
program in Orissa. Tubewell transfer in
GWRDC comes with no such hangover.

Enabling Factors in Context

In the tubewell-transfer program in Anand, well-
meaning policies and a professional approach by
GWRDC have been complemented by a set of
positive factors in the context of the transfer
program, which helped make it a relative
success.

1. Demand for tubewells: Reliable irrigation
is the most critical input to the
predominantly cash-crop-oriented
agriculture in Anand. Over the last few
years, the power supply has deteriorated
and rationing has increased. Farmers
have an urgent need to expand the
pump density but new connections are
costly and difficult to come by. This
increases demand for public tubewells.

2. Centrality of irrigated agriculture: In other
areas (particularly eastern India) the
unfamiliarity of farmers and local
technicians with the technology of
submersible pumps and buried pipeline
distribution systems and lack of
experience in distributing water to a large
number of farmers over a relatively large
command area are obstacles to the
tubewell-transfer program. Farmers in
Gujarat have no such obstacles as they
are well versed with the technology and
management of deep tubewells. They
have been using such systems for more
than seven decades in many parts of the
state.

3. Manageable pump-size: In states like
Andhra Pradesh, public irrigation
systems have pumps of very large
capacity (150-250 hp) for large command
areas running into hundreds of hectares.



27

TABLE 9.
Comparison of horsepower, command area and metering regime of GWRDC tubewells transferred during the periods
1988-1993 and 1993-2001, Anand district.

Note: Figures in parenthesis are the actual number of tubewells transferred in each category.

a. In the Anand district, there were only 20 fixed-tariff tubewells with GWRDC, of which they transferred 12 (60%) during the first 5
years of the transfer program.

b. In Anand district, GWRDC had about 280 functional metered tubewells. Of these, only 14 or 5 percent could be transferred during

the first 5 years of the transfer program.

Year Number Average Average Percentage of fixed Percentage of metered

transferred  horsepower command area (ha) tariff tubewells transferreda  tubewells transferred b

1988-1993 26 24.9 96.o 60 (12) 5 (14)

1993-2001 118 27.8 111 20 (4) 41 (115)

All 144 27.7 108 80 (16) 46 (129)

Such systems have diseconomies of
scale in management, which make them
very difficult for small farmer groups to
run. An average public tubewell pump in
Gujarat is 20-30 hp with a planned
command area ranging from 100 to 150
ha, though the actual irrigated area is
much lower due to reasons explained
before. This makes it a manageable
asset for even an individual or a small
group of farmers. The preference of
farmers for smaller and better tubewells
is evident from the fact that the tubewells
taken over in the first wave of transfer
(from 1988-1989 to 1992-1993) were
essentially the small ones with small
command areas and high discharge
rates. Similarly, almost 60 percent of the
fixed-tariff (12 out of 20) tubewells was
transferred in the first 5 years, but only
about 5 percent or so of metered
tubewells could be transferred during that
period. Table 9 makes this point clear.

4. Presence of competition: Public
tubewells in Gujarat face stiff competition
from private tubewells. In most cases,

private owners sell water at lower prices
and on better terms. This helps in
checking the monopolistic exploitation of
beneficiaries by the new managers after
transfer.

5. Equitable landholding: The overwhelming
majority of farmers in the command area,
of public tubewells where we conducted
our survey (89%) were small and
marginal farmers and they hold the
majority of land while medium and large
landholdings are rare. The land
distribution pattern is similar among the
juths and cooperatives. This makes it
very difficult for an individual or a small
group to takeover the management of a
tubewell and monopolize its use, which
is a distinct possibility in areas like Bihar
where landholding sizes are highly
inequitable. The operating groups in
Gujarat are under pressure to sell water
to cover their costs and make the
systems viable for them. This promotes
equity and better client servicing while
keeping a check on oligarchic
tendencies.

Source: Data provided by GWRDC Anand district and Borsad taluka offices.



28

What Drives Farmers to Take Over
Public Tubewells?

Many researchers contend that farmers come
forward to take over the management of public
irrigation systems only when they are threatened
with closure of the system. The whole process,
according to them, is coercive. Sharma (2002) in
his study of a similar GWRDC transfer program
in Vadodara district has come out with similar
conclusions. However, our study in Anand points
out to factors other than coercion and
persuasion.

If coercion or threat were the main drivers,
we would expect the person having the largest
landholding in the command of the tubewell to
take over the tubewell and be the chairman of
the managing committee. This is because he has
the largest stake in the system. But it is
generally not the case. Two examples from our
study area will illustrate this point. In the Kanba
village in the Borsad taluka, the de facto
operator (sanchalak) of the tubewell does not
have any land in the command area. Of course,
he could not legally take over the tubewell as the
transfer condition makes it mandatory for him to
have land within the command area. Five
farmers who had land in the tubewell command
area took over the tubewell and handed over the
responsibility of operating it to him. He had
actually collected the necessary Rs 10,000-
15,000 required for the transfer. In another
village called Kathana (Borsad taluka), a
schoolteacher who had only 0.4 ha of land took
over the tubewell. His main source of income
was his salary and not agriculture.

 In both the cases, closure of the respective
tubewells would have had hardly any affect on
the persons who took over the tubewells. Yet
they took the initiative and made investments
and efforts for take over. These are by no means
isolated cases. In most of the cases, the person

or group taking the initiative is not the largest
stakeholder but the one who is most enterprising
and venturesome and sees an opportunity in
converting GWRDC assets into viable income
sources. Control over a tubewell offers two
things cherished by all enterprising people:

1. Profit: In our study, we found that a
typical tubewell earns an annual profit of
Rs 18,000-19,000 on an initial
investment of around Rs 10,000-15,000
in the first year of lease and Rs 5,000
per year thereafter. Management
requirements of a tubewell are not very
exacting and can be easily delegated to
a salaried operator. Cooperatives make
marginally more profit than juths and
tubewells with flat-rate connections earn
25 percent more profit than the metered
ones (Rs 24,353 and Rs 19,225
respectively, per tubewell per year). It is
no wonder that even in the first 5 years
of the transfer program, when the
turnover rate was quite slow, tubewells
with flat-rate connections had greater
acceptability among farmers (tables 7
and 9).

2. Prestige and social influence: Tubewells
form the backbone of the agrarian
economy of Gujarat. With the decline in
power availability and restrictions on new
connections, a tubewell has become an
even more valuable resource.
Consequently, control over a tubewell
brings enviable power, prestige and
goodwill to a person in rural Gujarat.

The findings of this study support the view
that it is lure of profit and not the fear of loss
that is the main driver for farmers who come
forward to take over these tubewells.



29

What Impedes Transfer of Public
Tubewells?

With GWRDC’s professional approach
notwithstanding, only around 60 percent of all
tubewells have been transferred to date in the
Gujarat state. Out of 354 functioning tubewells in
Anand district only 149 (49.5%) have been
transferred while another 155 are still with
GWRDC. A study of the transfer process is
incomplete if the factors that have impeded the
transfer of the rest of the tubewells are not
identified.

A large number of tubewells that have not
been transferred as yet can be classified into
two categories: 1) tubewells in very good
operating condition and 2) tubewells in extremely
poor physical condition.

The very good tubewells could not be
transferred because they offer an excellent
opportunity to make profits at a very low initial
investment and O&M cost, thereby attracting
competing claims from more than one group in the
command area. We visited one such tubewell in
the village of Duleta of the Umreth taluka. This
tubewell operated for more than 2,000 hours and
irrigated over 50 ha of land in the 2000-2002
period, thereby generating revenue of Rs 55,000
per year for GWRDC (based on GWRDC data).
These figures are higher than the average hours of
operation and area irrigated by a GWRDC
tubewell, which are around of 1,400 hours and 35
ha, respectively. In this village, two competing
groups have applied to takeover the tubewell.
However, without any consensus among them and
GWRDC, the tubewell could not be handed over.

On the other hand, tubewells in extremely
poor condition require high investments to
make them functional and viable. Even the
O&M cost of such tubewells is liable to be
high. This means that a group that takes over
such a tubewell will earn less on a higher
investment, making it a poor business
proposition. For example, in the village of
Navakhal in the Anklav taluka, a group had
returned a tubewell only a few days before we
visited the village. The group operated the well
for a year and realized that it was beyond its
means to repair the punctured bore of the
tubewell. In the last year (2000-2001), the well
could run for only 280 hours, which did not
even recover the rent (Rs 5,000) the group
had to pay to GWRDC. Therefore most of the
wells in poor condition had no takers. Such
dilapidated systems are by no means a rarity.
GWRDC has stopped all civil repairs for the
last 10 years or so and most of the public
tubewells are in a bad state. It is only in a few
isolated cases that tubewells haven’t been
transferred because of the absence of an
enterprising individual in the command area or
failure of farmers to come together to form a
group.

All in all, our assessment of the entire
transfer process is positive. We contend that
GWRDC in the last few years has met with
relative success in turning over public tubewells.
Such success still eludes public tubewell-transfer
programs in Kerala, Haryana, and Bihar, which
have been trying in vain to turn over public
tubewells to village panchayats (Brewer et al
1999) for the past decade.



30

Despite its relative success, GWRDC’s tubewell-
transfer program does not qualify as a classic
IMT case. In particular, IMT programs are
designed to ensure sustainability of irrigation
infrastructure. In GWRDC’s case the short lease
period and the requirement to return the tubewell
with all original parts intact (e.g., original motor
not substituted by an inferior one) and no
significant damage to the well structure, does not
ensure long-term sustainability in terms of
maintenance of the systems. Similarly, most IMT
programs such as those in Colombia, Mexico
and Turkey focus on governance issues such as
organizational structure and legal rights and
duties of the water users associations (WUAs),
while GWRDC does not concern itself at all with
these issues. Thus, GWRDC’s attempt does not
qualify to be called IMT in the prevailing sense
of the term and in essence is more in tune with
some rudimentary form of privatization where
only the management responsibilities have been
transferred without any long-standing legal
implications. Our findings should be interpreted
in this context.

There are three main conclusions drawn by
our study. First, the tubewell transfer program of
GWRDC has achieved relative success since
1998. This is specially so when compared with
its performance before 1998. In fact, till then this
program was branded as another case of
governmental failure (Shah et al. 1994). The
factors that Shah et al. (1994) list as being
responsible for the failure of the scheme are,
among other things, compulsory formation of
cooperatives, undue interference by GWRDC
officials (especially those of lower ranks), limited
autonomy, token rent and low exit cost, etc.
However, our analysis shows that many of these
impeding factors have been removed since 1998.

Conclusions and Policy Implications

Our second and most important finding is
that government commitment to the transfer
program is at the core of this success. This
willingness was manifested after 1998, when
GWRDC started setting targets for turn-over for
each section office. Top management not only
realized the urgent need for tubewell transfer, but
also successfully induced the lower-level
management staff to support it.

The third finding relates to what can be done
to make this program more attractive to farmers.
We contend that perhaps few more changes in
the GWRDC’s transfer method will make
tubewell transfer more attractive for farmers. We
make three recommendations in this regard.

First, GWRDC should consider longer leases
for the turned-over tubewells. Our study shows
that cooperatives have made greater capital
investments in the system and were able to
irrigate a larger command area than the juths
(57.9 and 55 ha, respectively) with lower
pumping hours (1,570 hours compared to 1,698
hours of juths). A secure long-term lease (around
10 years) will instill a sense of ownership and
confidence in the lessee to make investments.
This will further improve the performance of the
system, perhaps making it a better business
proposition than even the private tubewells.

 Second, GWRDC’s inability to turn over so
called “good tubewells” owing to multiple
applicants from the command area can be
overcome by introducing a process of “transfer to
the highest bidder.” We suggest that instead of
giving the tubewell for a fixed rent of Rs 5,000
per year, GWRDC should award the
management contract to the highest bidding
group or even individual through an auction open
to all beneficiaries. This will induce the lessee to
be efficient and expand his water-selling market.



31

Apart from earning higher returns for GWRDC,
this will also ensure that local political dynamics
do not frustrate the transfer process.

Third, by selling dilapidated or defunct
tubewells (there are almost 48 defunct tubewells
in Anand district alone) GWRDC can recover its
losses. Private investors will be willing to invest
in such units because these tubewells come with
an electricity connection which is at a premium
as new connections are costly, time-consuming
and difficult to get. GWRDC must devise proper
pricing for defunct tubewells. One such estimate
by Shah and Ballabh (n.d.) suggests that it
would be fair to sell off a defunct and closed
tubewell for Rs 10,000 since, in all probability, its
book value would be near zero. A good case can
be made even for selling off all the functioning
tubewells along with the dysfunctional ones,
which would at least ensure that farmers will
have incentive to invest in maintaining and
improving the system. As already pointed out,
under existing conditions, the long-term
sustainability of GWRDC tubewells are at stake
and most of them might be closed down in
another 5 to 10 years. If needed, payment for
functioning tubewells can be spread over a
number of years.

GWRDC’s performance over the last 4 years
has set a successful example in tubewell
transfer. The essence of GWRDC’s success lies
in simplicity, speed, scale, frugality (of
institutional investment) and stability. Any agency
trying to replicate its success must have
commitment to the transfer process and adopt a
professional approach towards it. It would be
naïve to expect people in the lower hierarchies

of the relevant agency to volunteer to support
the process as it might entail a direct threat to
their jobs. Top management should take the lead
and communicate it clearly through unambiguous
policies and action. GWRDC, quite admirably,
has managed the transfer program like a
marketing project. The centrality of the customer
is the distinctive element in this marketing
approach. The “marketeer” (GWRDC) has
developed a valuable proposition that is
attractive to its customers (farmers). Most
irrigation transfer projects are designed only to
shift the management costs and responsibility to
farmers without offering commensurate returns
and authority. After developing a solid and
valuable proposition, GWRDC adopted a target-
oriented approach with an emphasis on speed
and scale. Speed and scale can be achieved
only if the marketing process is simple and direct
and not process intensive. They also adopted a
flexible approach that allowed them to take the
feedback from farmers and make necessary
changes. GWRDC has successfully adopted this
approach with the result that almost 60 percent of
the public tubewells in the state of Gujarat have
been transferred and are being voluntarily and
successfully managed. Given that the situation in
Gujarat is quite unique (both in terms of relative
equity in landholding and centrality of tubewell
irrigation) it is not realistic to conclude that the
GWRDC transfer program can be directly
replicated in other states of India. However, the
lessons learnt from the GWRDC transfer program
are nevertheless important because other states
could perhaps adapt a similar transfer program
according to their agrarian realities.



32



33

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Research Reports