Groundwater Extraction for Use Efficiency in Crop Production under Different Water Market Regimes: A Case Study of Uttar Pradesh State (India)

Abstract

Tube well irrigation, through modern water extraction mechanisms (WEMs) has been vital to food security and sustainable livelihoods in India due to reliable and comparatively better efficiency than canal irrigation. Since such mechanisms are largely under the private domain, its distribution is highly skewed towards large farmers. Small and marginal framers have to rely on owners of WEMs for irrigation water, resulting into an emergence of an informal water market. Thus, the present study was an attempt to examine the groundwater extraction and water use efficiency under different water market regimes (buyer, self-user, self-user + buyer and self-user + seller) in Central Plain Zone (CPZ) of Uttar Pradesh, which has well developed water market and water intensive cropping pattern. The primary data was collected through multi-stage random sampling from hundred farmers-households of Central Plain Zone in the year 2007. By examining the source–wise development of irrigation, it was found that share of canal irrigation in total irrigated area of Central Plain Zone has decreased during last four decades while that of tube well has increased about three times during the same period indicating that region was heavily depending upon groundwater as a source of irrigation. Moreover, most of the farmers in the study domain were predominantly small and marginal having less than 2 hectares (ha) of land. These resource poor farmers buy water from the WEM owners, thus, groundwater market provided them easy accessibility to irrigation water and helped in realizing better yield. Accessibility to secure irrigation was reflected by cropping pattern, which was skewed towards water intensive crops like wheat, paddy, sugarcane, potato, etc. To know the water use efficiency for different water market regimes, production function approach was used and it was found that for buyers, water was most limiting Water Management in Agriculture: Lessons Learnt and Policy Implications factor for farming due to uneconomic land holding and they were found to be under utilizing water resource. For self-user, and self user + seller, having their own water extraction facilities, over utilization of the water resource was found due to injudicious use of it while, self user + buyer were using groundwater economically resulting in almost optimum utilization of irrigation water. Thus although groundwater market helped in better realization of their resources to both the groups (sellers and buyers), but have various efficiency and equity considerations. In most of the cases, the water-buyers could get irrigation water only after the irrigation on own land was over by the owners/ sellers.