The authors study three tanks; one each in Karnataka, Andhra Pradesh and Kerala and find that almost all tanks in Southern India face similar problems that include farmers in command area being deprived of water, siltation, lack of proper maintenance of such structures, lack of political will to decentralise authority to tank institutions etc.
The tanks covered in this paper have common features, which include rule-making mechanisms. Water conflicts are less in traditionally managed tanks.
Hirekere tank situated in Karnataka has been mentioned in records dating back to the Vijayanagar period. The village is multi-religion and multi-caste with large number of marginal and small farmers. The authors provide the geography of the tank, its localisation given in government documents and state that it is irrelevant to the water management practices of the locals.
The authors discuss the traditional water management practices in these tanks which include sharing of water and deciding on area of cultivation depending on the amount of water present. However in case of the Peyikulam tank, water management is undertaken according to the bylaws of the association.
The paper concludes that social values attached to water management is imbibed in cultural behaviour internalised through socialisation processess in minds of rural people. However, the modern Participatory Irrigation Management (PIM) methods ignore these cultural aspects of water management.
This paper was presented at the National Seminar on Water and Culture organised by Kannada University and Sahayoga in 2007.
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