Socio-economic impacts of agricultural land drainage – A study from North-west India

At the global level, the annual losses of US $ 11.4 billion occur in agricultural production due to waterlogging. India is no exception to this menace and diverse statistics have shown that the problem is threatening agricultural production on 5.5 million to 13 million hectares. About one million hectare area is seriously affected, where agricultural production has been completely abandoned. To manage the problem in most fertile and irrigated areas, investment on drainage was initiated in the north-west region of India. This paper attempts to assess the benefits of installing sub-surface drainage for salinity control. The results have identified several farm-level benefits because of installing sub-surface drainage. These include (i) substantial increase in farm income, (ii) crop intensification and diversification towards high-value crops, and (iii) generation of employment opportunities. A proper management of this problem also helps in reducing income inequalities. Despite economic, social and environmental benefits, the adoption and acceptance of the subsurface drainage technology is always questioned, the specific reasons for which are: (i) indivisible nature of the technology, (ii) lack of collective action by the beneficiaries, (iii) conflicting objectives of the beneficiaries, and (iv) growing number of free riders. These could be controlled by appropriate institutional arrangements. The study has concluded that the technology dissemination without appropriate institutional arrangements might not yield the desired results.