Evidence-informed policy change to improve access to groundwater in West Bengal, India
Context
Groundwater resources in West Bengal are abundant and support irrigated rice production. However, farmers believe access to groundwater has been unduly restricted through electricity pricing and licensing of irrigation tube wells that limit agricultural production.
In the 1980s, the West Bengal government introduced a flat electricity tariff for farmers using tube well irrigation systems. At that time, tube wells were rare and the cost of meter reading was higher than the revenue it generated. This scenario led to a rise of informal groundwater markets, in which poor and marginal farmers purchased water from better-off farmers to irrigate their crops.
Additionally, politicians often set low tariffs to garner electoral support, leading to high revenue losses for the state electricity board. Flat tariffs also resulted in groundwater over-exploitation in regions with low rainfall and poor aquifers. In a bid to reduce the state electricity board losses, the state government reintroduced tube well metering in 2007, and required a permit to sink a tube well. Although this shift benefitted the electricity board, the move was thought to disadvantage millions of poor farmers with small landholdings, who relied on the informal groundwater markets for irrigation.
There was a growing need to generate evidence on the impact of the tariff policy on the state’s 100,000 pump owners and the additional 10–20 farmers to whom each pump owner sold water, amounting to 1–2 million affected households. When the researchers engaged with decision makers on the findings, the new state government promised to ease groundwater access for poor farmers.
Evidence
In 2010, 3ie supported an impact evaluation by researchers at the International Water Management Institute to explore the impact of changes in electricity pricing in West Bengal, from a flat tariff to metered pumping of groundwater for irrigation.
The study found that farmers with metered tube wells made less use of groundwater during the boro rice growing season (cultivation from November to May under irrigated conditions). This decrease was not confined to pump owners’ irrigation of their farms. It also had an adverse effect on water sales and purchases. However, metering did not have an impact on cropping patterns or the output of boro paddy fields.
Evidence impacts
Type of impact: Change policies or programmes
Decision makers use findings from an evaluation or systematic review to adjust their programming to fix targeting, cash transfer amounts, training modules or other factors that inhibit the policy or programme’s ability to achieve its intended impacts.
This is one of 3ie’s seven types of evidence use. Impact types are based on what we find in the monitoring data for an evaluation or review. Due to the nature of evidence-informed decision-making and action, 3ie looks for verifiable contributions that our evidence makes, not attribution.
Read our complete evidence impact typology and verification approach here.
Close windowIn November 2011 and again in November 2012, the state government made policy changes that were consistent with recommendations in the 3ie-funded impact evaluation.
The first change was the amendment of the 2005 West Bengal Groundwater Resources Act by Subrata Biswas, secretary of the Water Resources Investigation and Development Department. The department amended one provision of the law; farmers in areas with potential for groundwater development and with lower-powered pumps would no longer need to apply for costly permits.
Biswas made a second policy change in electricity policy and procedures after becoming secretary of the West Bengal Department of Agriculture. In 2012, the department launched a scheme to give new electricity connections to farmers, in return for a fixed connection fee. This meant farmers would no longer have to meet the full cost of wires, poles and transformers.
According to Aditi Mukherji, principal investigator of the 3ie-supported study, reducing the cost of irrigation through a one-off capital cost subsidy meant ‘it was easier for small and marginal farmers to apply for electricity connections, [because it] removes all the road blocks that [the] research had identified’.
Suggested citation
International Initiative for Impact Evaluation (3ie), 2019. Evidence-informed policy change to improve access to groundwater in West Bengal (online summary), Evidence Impact Summaries. New Delhi:3ie.
Evidence impact summaries aim to demonstrate and encourage the use of evidence to inform programming and policymaking. These reflect the information available to 3ie at the time of posting. Since several factors influence policymaking, the summaries highlight contributions of evidence rather than endorsing a policy or decision or claiming that it can be attributed solely to evidence. If you have any suggestions or updates to improve this summary, please write to influence@3ieimpact.org
Last updated on 30th October 2019