Water Institutional Reforms in Kyrgyzstan - The Politics of Water Institutional Reform in Neopatrimonial States - page 115

or the cooperative evolving from the FSK take care of water distribution, or the individual
farms have direct contracts with the RaiVodKhoz . The World Bank financed WUA support
department at the RaiVodKhoz had existed since March 2002 and has three specialists working
there: one specialist for development of WUAs (the head), one specialist for water use, and
one engineer. Every week on Tuesday is the “Day of WUA” ( den AVP ) at the Sokuluk Rai
VodKhoz . This is a weekly meeting of ideally all WUA directors (or other representatives)
together with the head of the support department and the head of RaiVodKhoz .
WUAs “BChK Sovkhozniy” and “kd orset”
The WUA “BChk Sovkhozniy” is located in the village Studencheskoe, which is one of four
villages of Frunze aiyl okmotu . The village of Frunze, where the aiyl okmotu administration is
located, is several kilometers away. The WUA covers the area of the former research farm of
the Agrarian University ( Uchebnoe Khozyaystvo , UchKhoz ). The WUA is named after the two main
channels from which it takes water: The Big Chuy Canal ( Bolshoy Chuyskiy kanal , BChK ) and the
Sovkhozniy canal. The WUA was founded in March 2001 and has 129 members: 128 individual
farms and the UchKhoz . The UchKhoz used to cover 2500 ha of land and was responsible for
water management. In 1999, the land was redistributed and a cooperative was founded. In the
beginning, all farmers were members, but now it is said to exist only on paper. Presently, in the
village are mainly small individual farms. The UchKhoz still owns 174 ha of fields, of which 145
ha are irrigated land. The WUA comprehends 2,667 ha of land, of which 1,867 ha are irrigated.
All farm owners are members of the WUA. Paid positions include that of the director, the
accountant, the hydro engineer and seasonally two mirabs . The council consists of seven mem
bers. The WUA received a grant from the ADB for a computer and a motorcycle. 169 The ISF is
currently 5.5 tyn, but plans have been made to increase it to 6 tyn for the upcoming season. At
the time of field research, not all farmers had signed their contracts of water delivery yet, even
though the irrigation period was already about to start. Although there is in general enough
water for everyone, huge losses are incurred due to the deteriorated water infrastructure.
The WUA “kd orset” covers the whole area of Zhany Pakhta aiyl okmotu , which is located
in the lower part of the Sokuluk valley near the border to Kazakhstan. It consists of five villag
es with 5983 inhabitants. Before land reform, the whole area belonged to a state breeding farm
( Semeinoe Khozyaystvo, SemKhoz ). The people there cultivate mainly cereals. The local WUA was
founded in 2002 and is responsible for water withdrawal from two channels: the 10 th and the
11 th channel. It has 242 member farms. There are three large members of the WUA: the aiyl
okmotu (which has 400 ha of land) 170 , the agricultural cooperative ( selskokhozyaystvennyj kooperativ,
sk ) “Zhany Pakhta”, and the breeding farm ( SemKhoz ) “Zhany Pakhta”. The breeding farm and
the cooperative are the successors of the FSK. Though formally independent organizations,
they share offices, staff members, and even have the same director who was the director of the
FSK before. Before the WUA was established, the SemKhoz was responsible for water distribu
tion. The irrigation set belongs on paper to the SemKhoz . The ISF was 5 tyn in 2004 and in
creased to 6 tyn in 2005. The WUA staff consists of the director, the accountant, the hydro
technician, and six mirabs. The council consists of nine members. It also has an arbitration
committee.
169 The motorcycle is important for the mirabs to drive along the channels and control them. The lack of transportation
means (motorcycles or bycycles) is a problem in many WUAs. In other cases the director uses his private car. The
computer the WUA got is not used in the office, as there is no electricity (and also no telephone), but stands in the
WUA director's home. During field research, it was mainly used by his sons for computer games.
170 With land reform, the aiyl okmotu got assigned 25% of FSK land that stayed in government ownership.