Fifty per cent of India’s dams are concentrated in Maharashtra, but only 17 per cent of the agricultural land in the state gets irrigated. The irrigation department (id) presides over an unwieldy irrigation system that is in a state of acute disrepair. And, the government of Maharashtra (gom) has been unable to do much about it for it is hamstrung by a grave resource crunch. To extricate itself from this mire, it issued a resolution, in July 2001, notifying that irrigation water was to be supplied only to farmers’ water user associations (wuas). But the gom’s desire to use wua s as an agency for transforming the irrigation system of the state remains only on paper.

Farmers started forming cooperatives in Maharshtra around 10 years ago under the guidance of non-governmental organisations (ngos) like the Society for Promoting Participative Ecosystem (soppecom) and Samaj Parivartan Kendra (spk). There are a total of 346 functioning wuas in Maharashtra. In addition there are 590 wuas, which have registered but have not signed the Memorandum of Understanding (mou) with the gom, and 573 wuas which have been formed but have not registered. The total area under wuas is 4,71,153 hectares. Today these associations are the only redeeming features of Maharashra’s irrigation system. They buy water in bulk from the id, ensure equitable distribution and take care of its management.

The peculiar nature of canal irrigation means that cooperation between farmers is very critical for equitable distribution of canal water. This is because of the asymmetry caused by the location of fields along the canal and its bran