A special study submitted in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the post graduate diploma of the Asian Institute of Technology

Special Studies Project Report - Asian Institute of Technology, 1989

There has been a continuous grievance about the inequitable water distribution among the farmers from a long time. Specially the tail-enders of irrigation systems suffer because they receive inadequate water on their farmland while head- enders sometimes wastewater. As a result, tail-enders cannot get as high yields as head-enders. It is obvious that inequitable water distribution also reduces the overall production of the system. The design and management of the irrigation system is of great importance to overcome this problem. During the last half century, paddy cultivation under irrigation in Sri Lanka has increased enormously, under new and restored irrigation systems. Their success has been limited by several problems. Better technical water distribution systems as well as management organisations have been implemented to increase their productivity. Integrated Management of Major Irrigation Settlement Schemes (INMAS) is such a management scheme introduced to achieve higher agricultural productivity and income for the farmers through farmer participation, coordinated and integrated management in irrigation water management and agricultural activities in major irrigation schemes. This study tries to find out how satisfied farmers are with the provision of irrigation water and how that affects their productivity in a newly constructed irrigation scheme, Inginimitiya, where new technological water distribution systems and improved farmer participation and management of agricultural systems has been improved. The study examines whether the problem of tail-enders of the system has been solved and there is an improvement of yield due to that. The findings show that still there is a significant difference in farmer satisfaction between head-enders and tailenders with the tail - enders being less satisfied. However the difference in yield between these two groups is not significant suggesting that their perception may not be justified. The study also shows that although there are problems with the design, maintenance and management are the major aspects which need to be improved.