Environmental Engineering Reference
In-Depth Information
production plans in Tajikistan are still in force despite formal privatization. The consequences
in both cases are similar, however: general poverty and widespread subsistence production.
The agricultural economy is mainly a barter economy with little cash transfer. Those conditions
make it difficult to introduce monetary mechanisms like water fees. In both countries farmers
possess neither the necessary means nor the necessary knowledge for lucrative agriculture.
Interviewed officials showed an understanding of the situation of the farmers and know about
the limits to collect fees or sanction all those that cannot pay.
RaiVodKhozes
and WUAs usually
do not sanction non payment despite it being against their self interest. It shows that water
fees are obviously not perceived as legitimate rules even by those that should enforce them.
Another consequence of the agricultural barter economy is that it is expanded to water
management: water fees are for a considerable part paid in kind, mainly in crops and other
agricultural products, but also by maintenance work on channels. It results not only in limited
cash flow to the water agencies, but also increases transaction costs and creates additional costs
(storage, transportation, etc). Repair and cleaning of channels in exchange for water by farmers
lack the proficiency needed to make it sustainable. Under those conditions, despite ISFs irriga
tion systems continue to deteriorate, leading to constant water loss (which also has to be cov
ered by the ISF) and unreliable water delivery. Hence ISF do not provide any short term, visi
ble benefit for farmers. Additionally, one could even ask whether any rational farmer will pay
ISFs. Also farmers who do not pay will receive water and often for those farmers who pay, the
water delivery is also not guaranteed due to the deteriorated infrastructure. So, non payment is
hardly followed by any sanctions. And payment does not necessarily lead to the benefit of
guaranteed and timely water delivery. The puzzle to be explained seems under this perspective
less why users do not pay fees, but why users do pay fees.
Local governance institutions also play a role, as they present an institutional logic that
can come into conflict with rule implementation and might be assessed higher. An argument
often brought in favor for ISF is that they would not only promote efficiency, but also equity.
It is well known that current institutional arrangements without ISF in general privilege large,
influential water user while small water users are disadvantaged. However, just introducing ISF
does not mean that everybody who pays will receive water. While in theory water fees should
lead to a water right and guaranteed water delivery, in practice reliance on patronage is still
more to ensure water delivery. While payment may or may not result in water, patronage rela
tions will result in water. To ensure timely and sufficient water supply to his field, the most
rational behavior for a farmer is, hence, to invest in patronage and not in fees. Patronage en
sured already during land reform the allocation of the plots located near and upstream the
channel and ensures the non sanctioning of un authorized water withdrawal. To explain why
farmers do pay ISF, it seems more valuable to refer not to incentives but to patronage: When
benefits are no incentive to pay ISF, then payment can only be explained with the authority of
the one who demands payment. WUA chairs and directors, often former cadres of the FSK,
have the authority to enforce payment. In doing so, ISF becomes part of the unequal patro
nage relations instead of a sign of the right to water, as it is often celebrated in theory.
In addition, water institutional linkages play a role. The governments in both countries
did not take any steps to provide the necessary capacities for the water administration (e.g.,
technical facilities or additional staff to collect the fees). In most places, it is currently impossi
ble to measure the water amounts delivered to individual farmers due to widely non existing
measuring facilities at the former on farm channels of the state and collective farms, some
times not even to the area of an entire WUA. In most places, currently only a quasi volumetric
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