Articles by Niranjan Pant

This paper is based on a large resurvey of villages, after a gap of 20 years, in the eastern and western regions of Uttar Pradesh. Some of the findings from the study indicate that significant changes have taken place during these years in the two regions in respect of socio-economic features, role of groundwater irrigation including groundwater markets, productivity of crops and changing face of the rural elite. The most important trend is that the high-caste supremacy in terms of ownership of modern agricultural implements is on the wane, while backward castes are surging ahead in such ownership.



Water Management in India, China and Japan Niranjan Pant Water Resource Management: Institutions and Irrigation Development in India by A Vaidyanathan; Oxford University Press, New Delhi, 1999;

All over the world irrigation farmers' organisations have been very effective in irrigation management, both at project and farm levels. Farmers, acting collectively, rather than governments, have determined both procedures for distributing water and resolution of conflicts with other groups over the development of additional supplies.

Farmers' Organisation in Large Irrigation Projects Niranjan Pant The paper advocates the necessity of farmers' organisation at the watercourse level in large irrigation projects in India. The Utility of such an organisation is evidenced in the findings of the scholars all over the world. Despite various government pronouncements about the necessity of farmers' organisation, they are in a state of infancy in India. The relevant issues concerning farmers1 organisation which are required to be resolved before such organisations are built in to the irrigation projects are as follows: I) The Role of the Government/the Agency 2) Farmers' participation: before or after OFD Works 3) Single versus multi functions 4) One tier versus multi tier 5) Village based versus channel based 6) Lesions from indigenous systems. The paper outlines the factors contributing to the success of such an organisation. The factors deduced from a successful case of farmers' organisation studied by us earlier are: i) Good leadership; ii) Adequate and reliable water supply; iii) Greater interaction between the officials and the farmers; iv) Easy unanimity among group members; v) Inducement from the government/the agency; and vi) Legitimacy of the organisation.