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| Institutional Innovations in Irrigation Management - A Case Study from Northern Pakistan - The Kuhls of Karimabad and Hyderabad villages in Hunza Valley |
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Reference |
| Dani, Anis A. & Siddiqi, Najma: " Institutional Innovations in Irrigation Management - A Case Study from Northern Pakistan.", paper prepared for International Conference on Public Intervention in Farmer Managed Irrigation Systems, International Irrigation Management Institute, Kathmandu, Nepal, August 3-8, 1986. |
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Introduction to the Institution |
| Aliabad is a village of 337 households (1986), located in the Hunza Valley at an altitude of 2200m. Agricultural crops, fruit- and fuelwood trees are entirely dependent upon irrigation. Water comes from a glacial stream through "kuhls" - a combination of channels and tunnels (in landslide prone areas.). The Kuhls and the water they provide, is shared with two other villages; Karimabad and Hyderabad. Karimabad is located upstream, Hyderabad in the middle and Aliabad downstream. Together, the villages have set up rules for allocation of water and maintenance of Kuhls but each village might have its own rules for water allocation within the community. This record describes the institution set up for coordinating irrigation management at the kuhl-level - the whole irrigation community including all of the 3 villages - but it also pays specific attention to the institution set up at village level in Aliabad. Some of the Kuhl's in the area are reported to be more than one hundred years old - from the 1880'es. This was also the time of the original settlement in Aliabad. |
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Coverage of the Institution |
| Geographic and historical coverage is not reported. The institution is concurrent. |
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Rules for Management
of the Institution |
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(a) Boundary Rules |
| Social boundaries: The rules of this institution partly work at kuhl-level, but each village has set up further mechanisms for regulation and governance at village level. The village level examples apply for the village of Aliabad. |
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(b) Governance
rules |
| From 1953 up to 1985, a "Jirga", council, for irrigation management was founded. Jirga's was set up at three levels; Kuhl-level, village level and lineage or neighbourhood level, covering lineages within the village. At village level, the Jirga had 16 members representing all segments of water-users from the Aliabad subsystem. The Jirga functioned as sanctioning body, supervisor and it was also the forum for conflict resolution. The Jirga system was maintained until 1985 when it was replaced by the Volunteer Corps of Ismaili community (All residents of Aliabad are Ismaili). The VC was assigned to supervise and manage the distribution of water and control the length of the kuhls. The VC has 76 members, of which 40 works actively. Each household pay 100 rp. p.a. to the VC which goes into the VC-fund. The replacement of the Jirga by the VC has only affected supervision and monitoring of the irrigation system, the ways of distributing water and maintaining the kuhls have remained.
MAINTENANCE RULES: The three villages cooperate in maintaining the kuhls and they have set up the following rules for maintenance.Kuhls are cleaned and repaired each year at the end of May. All households in the villages should participate in this activity. If a household do not wish to contribute labour, it can comprensate by paying cash (1985: 300rp.) Each subsection (village) of the irrigation community has a part of the kuhl to repair. During the season someone (no further description) will have the responsibility of controlling the length of the kuhl, while taking care of minor repairs. If there are significant breaches, the user group will be mobilized for repairing. However, this mobilization will only include downstream users. E.g. Karimabad, being located at the top of the system, can mobilize help from both Hyderabad and Aliabad, Hyderabad can only mobilize help from Aliabad, and Aliabad will have to manage alone. |
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(c) Resource Allocation |
| A complex system of allocation of water among the villages has been established. Aliabad has appointed fulltime watchmen to look after the interests of the village at the intake and additional watchmen are appointed to regulater the flow through the other regulatory gates. In Aliabad, water rights are primarily linked to the rights over land. However they vary with landuse. The water is shared on a rotational basis among the individual farmers by the warabundi system. Wheat has top priority followed by alfalfa and finally fruit orchards. F. ex. the major kuhl - Samarkand - is divided into four secondary channels: Dalah, Makuchim, Chooshihar and Peer. Dalah and Makuchim serves the main wheatfields. The others were added subsequently for alfalfa fields and orchards. Water in these is only released when there is surplus. F. ex. Peer is provided water only after 15. June. The priority of wheat and alfalfa will be reduced if these are interplanted with trees. To maintain top priority they should be grown on cropland. Finally there is a general constraint on horticulture, as trees cannot be planted within 12 yards of a neighbouring field. |
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Conflict Resolution Mechanism |
| Some people consider the rules for water allocation as anachronistic. Cash returns of fruit trees are five times that of wheat, and due to improvements in infrastructure, access to markets have become easier. Therefore they argue that fruit trees should be given a higher priority, as fruit can be sold at a good price at the market, where cheap wheat from Punjab is also available. Still the old farmers who earlier had to depend on selfreliance in a remote area, stress the importance of food security. They argue that trees have shading effects on other crops, and that they use to much water. The study suggests that a change towards giving higher priority to fruit trees is likely to occur in the near future, because changing externalities, in the form of improved infrastructure and market access, are likely to provide institutional innovations. (1986). |
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Problems Faced by Institution |
| Due to migration, an increase in the number of absentees from maintenance tasks was reported. |
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Changes in the Institution over time |
| Before the Jirga was founded, the management structure of the irrigation system was lineage based. At the time of the initial settlement in Aliabad, the settlers were allocated blocks of land on a lineage basis to be divided among households of the lineage. Water shares were similarly allocated and internal distribution was the responsibility of the lineage. Growing population forced the irrigation system to expand. AQdditional land brought under the command area of the irrigation system was distributed among all lineages and futher among the households of each lineage. Thus, over a period of time the fragments of arable land owned by households and lineages were scattered over the entire farmland of Aliabad. This developed a contradiction between the institutional system and the technical system. The scattered nature of landholdings made an irrigation management system based on lineage unsuitable. Thus, the Jirga system was formed in 1953 (see GovR). The replacement of the Jirga system by the VC system, is seen in the study partly as a result of population growth due to migration, which resulted in the increase in the number of absentees from maintenance tasks and partly as a result of the rapid incorporation of the Hunza Valley in mainstream Pakistani society. Regarding the rules for resource allocation, the major trigger of change is the improvement of infrastructure,viz. the completion of the Karakorum Highway, which has made markets easier accessible, generally lessening the degree of isolation. |
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Purpose |
| Irrigation Management. |
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Country |
| Pakistan. |
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Region |
| Hunza Valley |
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Date Of Publication |
| TroB 190396 |
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