Project assistance completion report : water resources management and training project (386-0484)

The project was a great success, and by its end had become a "flagship" program with high visibility and impact and national stature. It had been expanded from 5 to 11 states containing 75% of India's population and 85% of its surface and underground water supply and played a major role in developing India's first national water policy. It has been cited as having the potential to produce a legacy to U.S.-India relations similar to that achieved by U.S. contributions to India's agricultural universities. Key achievements were as follows. Over 1,000 professionals received specialized U.S. training, and over 12,000 field-level professionals and farmers received in-country training. Indigenous training capacities were greatly strengthened, as is evident in the fact that 10 technical training and training of trainers programs initially conducted by U.S. universities were transferred to India. Training programs related to integrated river basin planning and design, and the development of interactive video disc technology were also institutionalized under the project, and, perhaps most importantly, 11 Water and Land Management Institutes (WALMIs -- State training institutes) were established. Both the WALMIs and independent institutes, either directly or through PVOs, interfaced with the small-scale farming sector in action research that focused on solving water application and production problems. Among the project's many accomplishments in this area were its collaborative work with the Mohini Cooperative Waters User's Society, and its work through the Bhartiya Agro-Industries Federation, which by itself has extended project benefits to thousands of farmers in the states of Gujurat and Maharashtra. Other major achievements included: promotion of participatory collaboration in resolving conflicts over water allocation (which were quite frequent at project initiation); formation of operational linkages among participating ministries, departments, and universities; increased public sector support for private sector engagement in the irrigation sector, as exemplified by the Center for Water Research and Development and Management in Calicut, Kerala; and promotion of new external collaborations, including a joint program between the Central Ground Water Board and the U.S. Geological Survey. Project impacts are likely to be sustained, as many of the ideas promoted under the project have been included for funding in India's Eighth Five-year Plan. Both the central and participating state governments have declared their intent to provide long-term financial support for the WALMIs and other activities initiated under the project, including providing attractive salaries to insure retention of professionals working at the WALMIs. Lessons learned included the following. (1) Participatory training methodologies should have been adopted in addition to the traditional lecture-oriented methods; construction of training institutes should have focused on facilities for participatory training rather than just lecture halls. (2) Action research, though eventually one of the project's most successful elements, was slow to be developed and replicated. Baseline studies and periodic assessments should have been built into the project design. (3) The success of the project, despite its large scale and institutional complexity, is attributable in part to mid-course restructuring and simplification. Simplification becomes more important as the size and complexity of a project increases. (4) Organizational and procedural changes might have been better addressed as a separate initial phase of the project, followed by implementation of project activities.