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vol xlvi no 7
59
SPECIAL ARTICLE
Pp viii + 318
ISBN 978-81-250-3953-2
2010
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Windows of Opportunity
By K S KRISHNASWAMY
A ruminative memoir by one who saw much happen, and not happen, at a time when everything seemed possible and promising in India.
K S Krishnaswamy was a leading light in the Reserve Bank of India and the Planning Commission between the 1950s and 1970s. He offers a
ringside view of the pulls and pressures within the administration and outside it, the hopes that sustained a majority in the bureaucracy and
the lasting ties he formed with the many he came in contact with. Even more relevant is what he has to say about political agendas eroding
the Reserve Banks autonomy and degrading the numerous democratic institutions since the late 1960s.
Pp xii + 190
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1857
A compilation of essays that were first published in the EPW in a special issue in May 2007. Held together with an introduction by Sekhar
Bandyopadhyay, the essays that range in theme and subject from historiography and military engagements, to the dalit viranganas idealised
in traditional songs and the unconventional protagonists in mutiny novels converge on one common goal: to enrich the existing national
debates on the 1857 Uprising.
The volume has 18 essays by well-known historians who include Biswamoy Pati, Dipesh Chakrabarty, Peter Robb and Michael Fisher. The articles
are grouped under five sections: Then and Now, Sepoys and Soldiers, The Margins, Fictional Representations and The Arts and 1857.
Pp viii + 364
ISBN 978-0-00106-485-0
2008
Rs 295
Available from
vol xlvi no 7
EPW
SPECIAL ARTICLE
Tohl Kalan
Gharinda
Ballab-e-Darya
Slope
Prevalent soil type
Average depth of water
table below (metre)
Type of irrigation
Sources of irrigation (%)
gentle
alluvial
gentle
alluvial
gentle
alluvial
12
mixed
canals 43
tube wells 57
18
groundwater
46
groundwater
EPW
vol xlvi no 7
Marginal
Farmer
Small
Farmer
Medium
Farmer
Large Farmer
61
SPECIAL ARTICLE
Particulars
Marginal
Farmer
Small
Farmer
Medium
Farmer
Large
Farmer
18
26
38
18
0.72
0.96
1.00
1.00
45
58
70
98
32
58
1.00
1.00
1.06
1.34
37
56
74
96
32
15
32
20
0.41
1.00
0.91
1.80
46
58
67
109
62
Small
Farmer
Medium
Farmer
Large
Farmer
32.33
34.05
38.74
39.31
41.56
43.16
43.86
44
33.62
21.95
15.29
12.14
31.96
40.91
42.89
45.86
30.56
40.81
42.79
45.06
Others
37.49 18.29 14.33
Tube well irrigation village with problems of depletion (Ballab-e-Darya)
Rice
14.9 28.31 33.68
Wheat
31.51 29.78
37.74
Maize
10.42
1.47
3.88
Sugar cane
26.37 27.21 13.76
Others
16.8 13.24 10.93
9.08
Others
Tube well irrigation village (Gharinda)
Rice
Wheat
46.77
45.11
1.83
0
6.28
Buyer
Seller
Buyer (%)
Seller (%)
22.22
11.11
19.23
26.92
Medium farmer
23.68
15.79
Large farmer
11.11
33.33
Total farmers
20
21
20.00
21.00
100.00
0.00
100.00
0.00
Medium farmer
3.13
0.00
Large farmer
0.00
10.34
Total farmers
11
11.00
6.00
Medium farmer
13.33
3.57
6.67
12
11
37.50
34.38
Large farmer
12
5.00
60.00
Total farmers
33
25
34.74
26.32
vol xlvi no 7
EPW
SPECIAL ARTICLE
beyond what he can use on his own farm. The comparative proportion of households participating in groundwater markets shows a
direct correspondence with groundwater depletion (Table 5, p 62).
It is an inevitable fact that more buyers in the groundwater
market will be the owners of small and marginal landholdings
those who do not have the capital to set up their own tube wells
or those whose shallow tube wells have dried up. But it is interesting to note how groundwater depletion leads to increasing
skewedness in groundwater ownership, which, in turn, raises the
monopoly of WEM owners and exploitation of buyers (Figure). In
the Figure, the comparative groundwater levels in the three
villages are shown by ab, cd and ef. While the X-axis shows the
landholding size, the Y-axis depicts tube well depth. The increasing tube well depths with increasing landholding size in the three
villages are shown by ghi, ijk and klm, respectively. As the water
table goes down, many tube wells become non-functional when
owners fail in competitive deepening. These are mostly the
23.11
4.82
4.61
6.86
100
Wheat
60.81
23.18
4.73
4.53
6.74
100
Total
61.45
22.11
4.78
4.33
7.33
100
100
87.00
11.21
0.00
0.00
1.79
Wheat
87.00
11.21
0.00
0.00
1.79
100
Total
87.49
10.42
0.08
0.50
2.05
100
46.65
45.04
5.73
0.69
1.89
100
Wheat
45.74
40.52
4.61
6.69
2.44
100
Maize
33.04
8.26
0.00
49.26
9.44
100
Sugar cane
25.00
65.38
3.85
0.00
5.77
100
Total
44.56
39.74
4.45
8.15
3.03
100
Self-user
Self-user +
Seller
Self-user +
Seller + Buyer
Buyer
Self-user +
Buyer
.47** (B)
** (S)
.37***(S)
*** (S+S)
**(S+S+B)
.40** (S)
.52** (B)
.35***(S)
*** (S+S)
**(S+S+B)
b
i
c
Wheat
d
Groundwater-table
k
e
l
l
f
m
Gharinda
Ballab-e-Darya
smaller landholding owning households as represented by triangles a-h-g, c-j-i and e-l-k, who lose access to irrigation water and
are compelled to buy water to remain in agriculture. This to a
large extent, exemplifies the fact that groundwater markets
emerge with a demand of water for irrigation and further expand
with rising scarcity due to depletion. Simultaneously, the farmers
with access to groundwater, represented by triangles h-b-i, j-d-k
and l-f-m also decline with depletion. In conditions of acute
depletion when a few deep tube wells functions, there are a
handful of WEM owners and a large number of buyers. In such
situation, it is inevitable that the monopoly of water sellers increases as they can bid any price for water and the terms of transaction of water trade get dictated by the sellers.
vol xlvi no 7
.44*** (B)
*** (S+B)
.47***(B)
Tohl Kalan
Particulars
Landholding size
Crops
g
a
.44
.44
.42*** (S)
.54***(S+S)
**(S)
.47
.44*** (B)
.47***(B)
.49*** (B)
.35***(S)
.42***(S)
Maize
.12
.01*** (B)
.12***(S+S)
.15
For a meaningful comparison, the selected farmers were classified into five categories of participants in water markets, viz,
buyers: (1) the farmers who buy water for irrigating their crops,
self-users + buyers, (2) the farmers who have their own WEMs
but also buy water, self-users + buyers + sellers, (3) the farmers
who have their own WEMs and also buy and sell water, self-users
+ sellers, (4) the farmers who have their own WEMs and also sell
surplus water, and self-users, and (5) the farmers who have their
own WEMs with which they irrigate their own land.
Although the groundwater market did not exist in the case of
self-users, for a meaningful comparison, they were also included
in the study.3 It was noticed that the sellers devoted a much
larger area to the most profitable as well as the most waterintensive crop rice than the water buyers, whereas in the most
water-depleted village, the buyers grew the less water-intensive
and much less profitable maize crop. It was widely noticed that
when a seller irrigated his own land, the spacing between water
turns was less than that of the buyers. Moreover, the existence of
a time constraint in irrigation all farmers tend to demand water
at the same time and place a heavy stress on the effective functioning of a groundwater market.
63
SPECIAL ARTICLE
The perception of buyers and sellers was that the direct control
over water enhances the output. This perception was also supported by the empirical study on the comparative yields of buyers
and tube well owners (Table 7). It was seen that among all categories
of participants in the water market, the buyers had significantly
lower yields for both rice and wheat in all the three sample villages.
Whereas for both these crops, there was a statistically significant
difference in yields obtained in favour of WEM owners, be it sellers
and self users or only self users. Although it can be argued that
there is no statistical evidence to justify the claim that higher yields
are the direct outcome of control over water and that the results
could also be explained by other attributes of tube well owners
which we do not have information to control for, such as the likelihood that they have greater access to other commercial inputs than
buyers. But micro level studies in Punjab have also empirically concluded that the input use, and, hence, the consequent productivity
increase with greater control over water assuring the flexibility
and reliability of irrigation to crops (Kaul and Sekhon 1991).
Thus, the results are indicative of a productive advantage
derived from tube well ownership rather than buying water. These
findings, as a result, also cast doubt on a popular argument that
water markets function so well as to neutralise the irrigation
benefits of tube well ownership (Shah and Ballabh 1997). As a
result, these empirical findings indicate that the groundwater
markets do not provide equal access to reliable irrigation across all
farmers and rather the water sellers gain much from water selling.
Besides the economics of water buying, there is the hidden
exploitation in the groundwater markets. In the initial stage of
groundwater market evolution, water was exchanged with farm
labour in which the buyer was expected to do all kinds of labour
as and when required by the seller. Land and labour linkages were
common in the rural economy, but the groundwater dependent
rural economies show linkages of the three most important components of agricultural production land, labour and water. This
bilateral bargaining between the buyer and the seller is subjected
to personal affinities and kinship ties, and, thus, the degree of
exploitation varies from one buyer to the other. But with falling
water tables the non-standardised terms of transactions change
into standardised cash contracts, which are either seasonal or
hourly. It was noticed that with rising water scarcity, the sellers
leased in buyers land for the kharif season when the scarcity was
acute because of rice cultivation. The leased in amount was very
little varying from Rs 6,000 to Rs 8,000 per season and the contract also implicitly meant that the seller was going to give water
free of cost in the Rabi season when all the farmers grew wheat
which required only three to four waterings. In these land-leased
contracts, all the inputs were provided by the landowners and
the water was provided by the tenant and the grain produced was
equally divided between the two.
This implies two important emerging concerns. First, water
has become the most important input in agriculture, surpassing
of land. This is implicit in the fact that the bargaining power in
the production decision remains with the (de facto) owner of water
and not the owner of the land. Second, along with the bargaining
power of the landlord, the value of land declines if it does not
have any source of irrigation, especially a functioning tube well,
64
which is evident from the lease-in amount. It was also noticed that
with further lowering of water tables, the sellers of water imposed
a yearly lease-in contract on the buyers when they do not give them
water in the rabi season also. The farmers consider leasing out
land as more profitable than rainfed maize cultivation. This fact
was also reiterated by the empirical evidence of the incidence of
lease out land by the farmers in the three villages where reverse
tenancy was positively correlated with groundwater depletion and
negatively with the size of the landholdings they own (Table 8).
Table 8: Incidence of Tenancy by Landownership in Different Irrigation Systems
Land Owned (Acres)
% of
% of
% of
Leased in Leased Out
Households Households Households Area as % of Area as % of
in Each Group Leasing in Leasing Out Operated Operated
Area
Area
11
23
13
50
22
6
0
0
0
1
9
11
6
28
18
21
0
0
0
2
0
0
9
17
13
0
0
0
2
1
0
0
5
5
5
0
0
0
9
7
29
9
0
0
2
It was seen that in this land labour water locked relationship, the credit also gets its place when the buyers mortgage their
leased in land to the water sellers, who are more than often large
landlords. The debt burden rises to enormous extent and in the
process of surplus accumulation by the large landlords; the small
and marginal farmers are compelled to sell out their land at distress
prices. It is a serious issue of the emerging rural economy of the
completely groundwater dependent societies, where farmers
losing access to groundwater irrigation, and their rights to land
and in the process turn into landless labourers from cultivators.
It is pertinent here to note that skewedness of ownership of
land could not be corrected through land reforms due to many
socio-political reasons, but this skewedness leads to proportionate
inequality and facilitate prior appropriation of the common
pool resource of groundwater to such an extent that it seizes the
land rights of the small and marginal landholders. With no welldefined right of groundwater, the rights of the resource-poor to
this scarce resource is not protected, and without access to water
they are forced out of farming and pushed to further deprivation
and impoverishment.
vol xlvi no 7
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Notes
1 Institutional finance for farm equipment at liberal
terms encouraged adoption of new water extractions machines in the canal irrigated tracts of
western India to curb the problem of water logging. There was a massive extension of rural electrification which also reduced unit operational
cost of pumping water.
2 The states which show very high level of groundwater development are Punjab (145%), Rajasthan
(125%), Haryana (109%), Tamil Nadu (85%) and
Uttar Pradesh (70%).
3 Out of the sample of 299 farming households only
four (1.3%) were non-users who neither enters into
the groundwater market nor they have their own
tube wells. Because of their insignificant proportion
they are left out in the comparisons.
4 In the focus group discussions with the farmers, it
was learnt that they would increase the price of
water according to the electricity tariff. Shah and
Ballabh (1997) in their study in villages in north
Bihar have shown that changes in water prices occur with the changes in diesel prices. Every time
the diesel prices rose, water cost rose by three
times the rise in the diesel cost.
5 The State Framers Commission had earlier sent a
proposal to the state government to this effect.
The proposal also sought that no farmer shall sow
nursery of paddy before 10 May and recommended penalty on the farmer who committed breach
of any of the provisions. The fine was to be in addition to the recovery of the charges actually incurred for destroying the crop sown/transplanted before a prescribed date.
6 Across Punjab, rice transplantation is only done with
the hired labourers, irrespective of the farm size. It
varies from Rs 1,000 to Rs 1,200 for transplanting
rice in one acre of land from village to village. During
the focused group discussions, the farmers revealed
that rice being a non-traditional crop in Punjab, the
Punjabi farmer is not habituated to stand in the hot
waters of paddy fields to transplant rice seedlings in
the hot months of May and June.
7 The National Rural Employment Guarantee Act
(NREGA) came into force in 2006. It is an Act to
provide for the enhancement of livelihood security of the households in rural areas of the country
by providing at least 100 days of guaranteed
wage employment in every financial year to every
households whose adult members volunteer to do
unskilled manual work.
8 In the mid-1980s when Johl Committee (1986)
recommended diversification within farming
away from wheat-paddy rotation to the extent of
20% in favour of fruit and vegetable, fodder and
oilseeds crops, no crop could compete with
wheat-paddy on assured profitability grounds. A
second Johl committee was set up in 2002 which
again recommended the same strategy of diversification which recommended 10 lakh hectares of
rice and wheat cultivation to be replaced with
higher value crops such as oilseeds and pulses. It
66
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