i GCP/IND/176/NET Andhra Pradesh Water Management Project Report of the Evaluation Mission ...

46 Pages·2011·0.28 MB·English

GCP/IND/176/NET
Andhra Pradesh Water Management Project

Report of the Evaluation Mission

Hyderabad

September 2008

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TABLE OF CONTENTS
Executive Summary.................................................................................................................. i
1. Introduction......................................................................................................................1
1.1. Background...............................................................................................................1
1.2. Methodology.............................................................................................................1
2. National Context and Background to the Project.........................................................2
2.1. National Context.......................................................................................................2
2.2. Origins of the Project...............................................................................................3
3. Assessment of Project Concept and Relevance..............................................................4
3.1. Project Theory..........................................................................................................4
3.2. Project Objectives and Logic..................................................................................5
3.3. Project Design...........................................................................................................5
3.4. Project Relevance.....................................................................................................6
4. Project Implementation...................................................................................................7
4.1. Project Budget and Expenditure............................................................................7
4.2. Government Support...............................................................................................7
4.3. Project Management................................................................................................8
4.4. Technical and Operational Backstopping..............................................................8
5. Project Contribution to the Development Objective..................................................10
5.1. Outputs and Results...............................................................................................10
5.1.1. Site Selection and Participatory Rural Appraisal (PRA)...........................10
5.1.2. Irrigation and Drainage Improvement........................................................10
5.1.3. Agronomic Practices......................................................................................14
5.1.4. Capacity Building and Training Activities..................................................15
5.2. Gender Issues..........................................................................................................15
5.3. Environmental Issues.............................................................................................16
5.4. Sustainability: institutional, social, technical and economic..............................16
5.5. Overall Effectiveness..............................................................................................17
5.6. Potential Long-term Impact..................................................................................17
6. Conclusions and Recommendations.............................................................................18
6.1. Conclusions.............................................................................................................18
6.2. Recommendations..................................................................................................19

Annex 1 - Terms of Reference for the evaluation of project GCP/IND/176/NET “Andhra
Pradesh Water Management Project”..................................................................................21
Annex 2 – Mission Itinerary and List of Persons Met.........................................................27
Annex 3 – List of Project Activities.......................................................................................31
Annex 4 – Socio-economic impact of project interventions in Modukuru and Mutluru
pilot areas................................................................................................................................ 39
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EXECUTIVE SUMMARY

i. The evaluation of GCP/IND/176/NET (Andhra Pradesh Water Management
(APWAM) project) forms part of the overall evaluation of FAO’s activities in India
over the period 2003-2008. A major part of FAO’s national project portfolio during
the evaluation period consisted of three projects, funded by the Netherlands and
implemented under the National Execution (NEX) modality. The project is
implemented by the Acharya N.G. Ranga Agricultural University (ANGRAU).
Technical assistance was provided under a contract with Alterra-ILRI, a research
institute of Wageningen University in the Netherlands.
ii. Under FAO’s corporate evaluation policy, all projects with a budget in excess of USD
4 million are subject to at least one independent external evaluation during their period
of operation. The findings of these evaluations will contribute to the decisions that
must be taken soon by FAO on utilization of the unspent balance of funds from the
Netherlands.
iii. The project was intended to address the major problems in irrigated agriculture in
Andhra Pradesh. Irrigation systems with supply-oriented design and operational
procedures had provided insufficient means for tuning water deliveries to cropping
patterns and actual water requirements. This had resulted in a number of inter-linked
problems, including uncertainty and delay in release of canal supplies; unreliable and
unequal availability of water supplies; very low irrigation efficiencies; sub-optimal
cropping patterns and irrigation practices and inefficient irrigation methods; lack of
conjunctive use of rain, ground and surface waters; and waterlogging and soil salinity
in irrigation commands. These were compounded by the fact that farmers had not been
involved in the maintenance and operation of irrigation and drainage systems when
they were built and thus they did not perceive sufficiently a stake in their effective
operation.
iv. The APWAM project was based on the premise that irrigation rehabilitation, and
adoption of crop production technologies that were both more water efficient and
productive, would require a high degree of engagement with target beneficiaries
(farmers in the command areas). It was unusual for a university in India to work
directly with farmers in their fields.
v. The evaluation found that the project was very relevant to State Government policy,
the need to improve irrigation performance and equity in distribution of irrigation
benefits and to involve farmers in the operation and maintenance of irrigation systems.
The relevance was constrained somewhat by the fact that irrigation water is provided
at a very nominal charge to farmers. Thus, farmer interest in water saving technologies
becomes keen only in times of water scarcity.
vi. The activities conducted by the project were appropriate to the project objectives and
efficiently conducted. The project conducted PRAs at each project site that were used
to determine the work programmes. Infrastructure improvement was carried out with
the participation of farmers and required a financial contribution from them. This was
commendable, as it gave beneficiaries a stake in effective operation the system.
Several water-saving technologies for rice cultivation were tried in farmers’ fields and
some may be of interest in case of water scarcity. However, at least in the pilot areas,
SRI proved not to be popular, because of labour requirements. The project also
developed other cropping alternatives that were both more water-efficient and showed
greater financial returns to farmers.
vii. Capacity building has been an important focus of the project, both formal training of
scientific staff and activities for farmer training. The training activities at pilot sites
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have been intensive and reinforced through specific campaigns. There is a continuing
requirement for formal training, as some staff have been promoted or transferred.
viii. At the level of the pilot sites, it is believed that most of the technologies that have been
introduced can now be practiced by farmers on their own, if they choose to do so.
However, in the last three years the pilot sites have received excellent monsoons. As
water is priced very low, the incentive to conserve it is limited. Nonetheless, should
water scarcity again become an issue, the farmers have been exposed to technologies
that will greatly enhance their chances to raise a crop.
ix. The project has met its objectives relating to equity of water distribution and water use
efficiency, and creation of participatory research capacity at the level of the project
sites. This was not easy; it is clear from the project reporting that much work had to
be done to achieve the necessary level of “buy-in” from farmers in the target areas. A
key factor has been the dedication of the project staff, including the continual presence
of an able Project Manager. The project also benefited from a very high level of
foreign technical assistance, considerably more than the norm in FAO-implemented
projects.
x. Finding ways to apply the expertise gained and lessons learned thus far will be an
important aspect of an extension phase to the project. As this was a pilot project, it is
unlikely that a project for scaling-up would be able bring similar levels of resources as
APWAM to address all these problems in a similarly integrated fashion. Projects for
scaling up will work in larger areas, with lesser resources for each site. The eventual
long-term impact will be determined by the degree to which the lessons learned in this
project, in irrigation rehabilitation, maintenance and operation and application of
water-saving crop production technologies, can be further disseminated once the
project ends.
xi. The evaluation makes 10 recommendations for the future, including for a two-year
extension of the project to carry out specific tasks; organization of a national
workshop on the project’s results; advocacy of beneficiary participation (including
financial) in irrigation rehabilitation; retention of staff in the project during the
extension phase; frequent collaboration with line Departments; establishment of links
with FAO’s MASSCOTE work; and incorporation of the project work into FAO’s
normative activities. It also makes recommendations concerning future work with
Alterra-ILRI and the contracting process for this.

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1. Introduction
1.1. Background
1. The evaluation of GCP/IND/176/NET (the APWAM project) forms part of the overall
evaluation of FAO’s activities in India over the period 2003-2008. A major part of FAO’s
national project portfolio during the evaluation period consisted of three projects, funded
by the Netherlands and implemented under the National Execution (NEX) modality. The
three projects were at various stages in their implementation, but subsequent to a decision
by the Government in 2004 to restrict the number of bilateral donors in India, the funds
for operating these projects were transferred by the Embassy of the Netherlands to FAO.
Technical support for the projects from FAO was funded by a separate project organized
expressly for this purpose (GCP/IND/177/NET).

2. An MoU was signed between FAO and Acharya N.G. Ranga Agricultural University
(ANGRAU), the implementing institution for the APWAM project in August 2004 and
FAO took over implementation from 1 November 2004. The FAO-ANGRAU agreement
was for four years, to 31 October 2008. The project budget was USD 4,646,565.

3. Under FAO’s corporate evaluation policy, all projects with a budget in excess of USD 4
million are subject to at least one independent external evaluation during their period of
operation. The three NEX projects all had budgets above this level. As all the projects
were scheduled to terminate their present phase in October 2008, an evaluation of each of
these projects by independent teams was organized to take place during September 2008.
The findings of these evaluations will contribute to the decisions that must be taken soon
by FAO on utilization of the unspent balance of funds from the Netherlands.

4. The evaluation of GCP/IND/176/NET took place from 15-27 September 2008. The team
assembled on 15 September in Hyderabad, home of the main campus of ANGRAU, where
an initial briefing took place. Field visits to four of the five project centres (Undi-
Bhimavaram, Bapatla, Garikapadu, Tirupati) took place from 16-21 September; a briefing
session was provided to the mission on 21 September in Hyderabad by the one centre
(Jagtial) not visited. The mission’s terms of reference are in Annex I; people met and the
mission itinerary are in Annex II.

5. The mission members were:
Robert Moore, FAO Evaluation Service, Team Leader
Vasudha Pangare, Independent consultant, socio-economics and gender
M.G. Shivakumar, Independent consultant, irrigation engineering

6. The mission is most grateful for the outstanding assistance furnished to it during the
course of the evaluation. Project presentations and organization of field visits were
uniformly excellent and the project staff members were unfailingly available to provide
documentation or answers to questions, sometimes on short notice. Thanks for directing
the organization of the mission go to the Honourable Vice-Chancellor of ANGRAU, Dr.
P. Raghava Reddy and the directors and staff of the Co-ordinating Centre and each of the
Network Centres. We are particularly grateful for their unstinting cordiality and attention
to the needs of the mission to the former Project Manager, Dr. T.V.Satyanarayana and the
new Project Manager Dr. K. Yella Reddy. We have enjoyed and appreciated the chance
to work with you.

1.2. Methodology
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7. The evaluation adopted a consultative approach with stakeholders and used triangulation
as a key method for validation of information and evidence. The project has maintained
very good reporting records that provided much of the required factual information for
analysis by the evaluation. The evaluation team gathered supplemental information and
carried out triangulation through field observations at four of the Centres, semi-structured
interviews with project stakeholders, including University/project staff, relevant actors
within the Government of Andhra Pradesh and in other related projects and beneficiaries
at pilot sites. At one site, discussions were conducted with non-beneficiary farmers to
assess their interest in technologies being demonstrated by the project. The mission is
convinced that it has received a sound evidence base for arriving at its conclusions and
recommendations, and that the methodology was appropriate to the time and resources
available for the evaluation.

8. As is standard practice in FAO, the evaluation report was discussed with and fact-
checked by key stakeholders before its official submission.

2. National Context and Background to the Project
2.1. National Context
9. India’s total cultivable land is 183 million ha., with an ultimate irrigation potential of 140
million ha. Net irrigated area during 2003-04 was 56.62 million ha., which grew to 60.19
million ha by 2005-06. Irrigation has played a very significant role in the impressive
growth of agricultural production in India. However, several problems have cropped up
over the years such as water-logging, salinity, soil erosion and water pollution. It is
currently estimated that an area of 4.5 million ha is waterlogged and 6.73 million ha is
salt affected, thus seriously limiting the production potential of these lands.

10. It is now becoming increasingly important to reclaim such areas to meet the ever
increasing demand for food. Such reclamation measures would particularly help small
and marginal farmers that represent a large component of the population in waterlogged
and salt-affected command areas to improve their livelihoods.

11. Situated in the southern part of India, the State of Andhra Pradesh covers an area of 27.84
million ha with a population of over 82 million, of which about 73% depends on farming
as their main source of livelihood. Out of 13 million ha of cultivable area, about 5.75
million ha are irrigated from surface and ground water resources1. The rapid expansion
of irrigation in recent years has led to dramatic increases in agricultural production and
yields, for rice and a number of other crops including maize, cotton, chillies, groundnuts,
pulses, jowar (sorghum) and bajra (pearl millet).

12. With the present level of withdrawal of available water at 58%, the State is considered to
be “water scarce”. Due to increasing population, the per capita availability of water is
expected to come down to less than 1000 cubic meters by 2025, moving the state to a
“water severe” situation. The per capita availability of land, which was 0.42 ha in 1991,
had come down to 0.35 ha in 2002. About 65% of the farmers have less than one hectare
of land. Irrigation efficiencies range from 17 to 42%, some of the lowest in the world.
Against the backdrop of increasing competition and conflict for water, across social
classes and geographical areas, the State needs to manage water demand, improve the
efficiency and equity of its existing water supply and distribution and effectively deal

1 “Water Management-Andhra Pradesh”, presentation by Dr M Devender Reddy
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with the threat of decreasing productivity of agricultural lands. The State has already
formulated “Andhra Pradesh Water Vision” to deal with water management strategies
and launched in the year 2003. The main principles include:
• Clean, hygienic, accessible, affordable and secure drinking water supply;
• Sustainable levels of water extraction from rivers, tanks and groundwater without
jeopardizing their future use;
• Conservation of rain water and its efficient use for agriculture, plantations, livestock
and groundwater recharge;
• An efficient, well-managed and sustainable irrigated agriculture sector – enhancing
value and ensuring farming livelihoods;
• Mitigating of the effects of droughts, with short-term emergency responses and log-
term planning;
• Prevention of the pollution of water resources used by people and livestock,
agriculture and industry;
• Integrated governance of water;
• Participatory water management at every level –individual, community, and
Government, with emphasis on the participation of women and landless persons in
decision-making.

13. FAO has a long history of assisting countries with irrigation management; one recent
effort worth noting is the MASSCOTE (Mapping System and Services for Canal
Operation Techniques) methodology which was field tested in irrigation projects in the
neighbouring State of Karnataka during 2006-2007. Since 2006, MASSCOTE has been
applied in 12 large irrigation systems in China, India, Morocco, Nepal and Thailand.
Some variations of the methodology were applied in Sri Lanka and Pakistan earlier. The
MASSCOTE document is published as the FAO Irrigation and Drainage Paper no 63.

14. FAO has been continuously assisting in capacity building of engineers by conducting
MASSCOTE workshops in Karnataka and trained more than 200 engineers in
modernizing irrigation management, exposing them to newer concepts such as Service
Oriented Management (SOM) and Integrated Water Resources Management (IWRM).
Interest has been shown and initial training carried out also in Uttar Pradesh.

2.2. Origins of the Project
15. The project had its origins in the Indo-Dutch Network Project on Drainage and Water
Management for Salinity Control in Canal Commands, a bilateral project financed from
1998-2002 through the Royal Netherlands Embassy in which ANGRAU participated
along with institutes in three other Indian states (Karnatka, Gujarat, Rajasthan). This
project also received technical assistance from the then-called ILRI (now Alterra-ILRI).
ANGRAU’s field of expertise had primarily been in crop research; the experience gained
through the Indo-Dutch project stimulated several initiatives, such as hosting a National
Seminar on Capacity Building for Agricultural Water Demand Management in November
2001.

16. As the Indo-Dutch project drew to a close, the Royal Netherlands Embassy (RNE)
indicated a willingness to finance a follow-up project in those States that were interested
and could formulate a proposal for consideration. The leader of the project in Andhra
Pradesh (who would become the Project Manager of APWAM) responded within the
deadline set by the RNE and his proposal was duly approved. The approved project
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continued technical support arrangements with ILRI; in October 2002 ANGRAU had
signed an MoU for twinning arrangements with Alterra-ILRI-Wageningen University.

17. The Government of India then announced its decision to restrict the number of bilateral
donors. Contacts were established shortly thereafter between the FAO office in India and
RNE concerning transfer of the implementation responsibilities of this and the other two
NEX projects to FAO.

18. The project was intended to address the major problems in irrigated agriculture in Andhra
Pradesh. Irrigation systems with supply-oriented design and operational procedures
provided insufficient means for tuning water deliveries to cropping patterns and actual
water requirements. This had resulted in:
• Uncertainty and delay in release of canal supplies;
• Unreliable and unequal availability of water supplies;
• Very low irrigation efficiencies;
• Sub-optimal cropping patterns and irrigation practices and inefficient irrigation
methods;
• Lack of conjunctive use of rain, ground and surface waters;
• Waterlogging and soil salinity in irrigation commands;
• Over-exploitation of ground water in non-command areas;
• Lack of information on water requirements of different crops and appropriate
water management practices for various agro-climatic regions of the State;
• Lack of advisory services and extension of water management practices to the
farming community.

19. The problems noted above are inter-linked. For example, excessive water use by head-
enders leads to conditions of waterlogging and salinity and also deprives tail-enders of
enough water for even minimum requirements. However, tail-enders are also susceptible
to waterlogging and salinity, the former due often to topography and the latter to long
periods in which soils are not covered in crops as water is not available. The project was
intended to address these constraints in an integrated fashion, at sites representing
different agro-climatic zones of Andhra Pradesh.

3. Assessment of Project Concept and Relevance
3.1. Project Theory
20. Irrigation structures have deteriorated over time because of poor operations and
maintenance. Built as Government programmes initially and without effective
participation and interest in their maintenance from the farming communities they were
intended to serve, the APWAM project was based on the premise that irrigation
rehabilitation, and adoption of crop production technologies that were both more water
efficient and productive, would require a high degree of engagement with target
beneficiaries (farmers in the command areas). Generally adopted as a strategy by NGOs,
participatory approaches involving farmers were not a usual method of operation for an
agricultural university, which traditionally developed “technically correct” solutions on
research fields and then wrote up the results in academic papers that almost never reached
farmers, or which were isolated from the practical possibilities of farmers to implement
them. In this sense, the APWAM project was very innovative in India.

21. The project document does not emphasize the pilot aspects of the project but implicitly
they have been recognized. The project worked with some 1200 farmers at the pilot sites;
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with a total project budget of over USD 4.6 million. At that level of “unit cost”, clearly
this project was not a directly replicable initiative; rather it had to develop workable
models that could be extend elsewhere at far lower cost. This should be the measure by
which the eventual success of this project is judged. Additionally, the project was
designed to strengthen ANGRAU as an institution and partner in future activities to
improve agricultural productivity and preserve and enhance the natural resource base.
The extent to which ANGRAU will be able to fulfil this role is another measure to assess
the impact of the project in the future.

3.2. Project Objectives and Logic
22. The stated development objective of the project is that water use efficiency should be
increased, the benefits of irrigation spread to tail-enders and agricultural production
capacity should be maintained in irrigation command areas. It also mentions soil
improvement, i.e. that lands threatened by waterlogging and salinity will be preserved
and those already unproductive will be reclaimed. Thus, the project development
objective was broad, but it reflects well the natural end result of the various initiatives
that the project proposed to undertake.

23. The stated immediate objectives were:
1. Demonstrated greater equity in water distribution and improved water use efficiency
(these are actually two objectives, the latter of which is part of objective 3 below);
2. Enhanced participatory research and implementation skills of ANGRAU staff;
3. Adoption of Integrated Water Resources Management (IWRM) skills by farmers in
the project area;
4. Establishment of a monitoring system for long-term impact of IWRM measures at
ANGRAU.

24. While the first three of these are objectives, the last one should be an output of the project
as this would be entirely within the control of the project management. The project has
interpreted this final item as referring to drainage system performance measurement,
including at two sites where such information has been gathered since 1999 under the
previous Indo-Dutch project. This information includes crop yields, annual soil salinity
measurements and socio-economic information that is updated annually.

25. The project document included a logical framework matrix, which is intended to establish
the logical linkages in the project. It is apparent that this was prepared as a requirement
rather than being used as a tool for means-ends analysis. For example, the statements
listed under “objectively verifiable indicators” for the results are actually a description of
the end-of-project status. In addition, particularly at the objective level where they are
conceptually significant, the assumptions listed are inappropriate. The “pilot” nature of
the project does not emerge from the logical framework.

26. The mission concludes that the project objectives were defined in a satisfactory manner
but there was considerable room for improvement in the elaboration of the project logic
(means-ends analysis).

3.3. Project Design
27. The project design was sound. Adequate resources were provided to implement the
project along the lines specified and the time frame for the pilot experiments was
appropriate. The project was set up within the ANGRAU structure, with a separate
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Advisory Committee, chaired by the ANGRAU Vice-Chancellor, to supervise the
implementation of project activities and provide overall strategy to the project. There was
also a Project Implementation Committee for programme monitoring, ensuring
cooperation between the centres, finalizing nominations for training, etc.

28. The project was headquartered at the Bapatla campus of ANGRAU (Guntur District),
with network centres of the project at district-level research facilities at Jagtial
(Karimnagar District), Garikapadu (Krishna District), Undi (West Godavari District) and
Tirupati (Chittoor District). Multi-disciplinary teams were set up at each of the Centres
to implement the project, with Research Associates posted at each of the pilot sites to
ensure daily interaction with the farmers. This was a high level of staffing but a key
element in ensuring the quality of work performed.

29. A key part of the project was the involvement of Alterra-ILRI, a research institute of
Wageningen University in the Netherlands. This organization has a history of
cooperation with ANGRAU, dating to the Indo-Dutch project. Because of Alterra-ILRI’s
previous experience in India and involvement with ANGRAU, they were an appropriate
choice to continue provision of technical support on a subject where ANGRAU had little
previous experience.

30. An initial project work plan was included in the project document and detailed work
plans were prepared annually that provided a good basis to assess project progress and
against which achievements were reported.

31. Beneficiaries were identified in the project document at a general level (farmers in the
project areas as “ultimate” beneficiaries; participants from ANGRAU and the
Departments of Irrigation and Agriculture as “intermediate” beneficiaries). The project
document also mentions the need to address gender aspects and that the project should
examine possibilities to work with the Andhra Pradesh Training of Women in
Agriculture Project (see Section 5.2).

3.4. Project Relevance
32. Given the large and increasing demand for food in the country, irrigation performance
improvement and crop production technologies that minimize water use are very relevant
to the needs of Andhra Pradesh and India at large. Greater equity in irrigation water
availability is an important aspect of poverty reduction, as tail-end farmers tend to be the
poorest. Past experience has shown that irrigation expansion needs to take place with
farmer involvement, to ensure that they have a vested interest in its effective, equitable
operation and maintenance. Thus, a project with an integrated strategy to address these
issues was indeed relevant to needs. The project was also directly relevant to the main
goals of the Andhra Pradesh Water Vision (mentioned above).

33. The overall relevance of the project is constrained somewhat, however, by the fact that
irrigation water is provided at a very nominal charge to farmers and the charge is
established by crop, not actual use. Thus, farmer interest in water saving technologies
becomes keen only in times of water scarcity, when efficient water use practices may
make the difference between harvesting a crop and crop failure. Indeed, if water is
available, many farmers prefer to flood their field as a means of weed control, due to the
increasing costs of labour. Furthermore, in the last several years, Andhra Pradesh has
been blessed with very good monsoons, unlike in the years immediately preceding the
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