posted on 2018-02-12, 15:08authored byM.M. Aheeyar
The major features of the water supply and management policies adopted in Sri Lanka have been centralized planning
though a public agency, supply augmentation, zero priced or under priced water and reliance on bureaucratic instruments
for water supply. Bulk water allocation system has been implemented in Mahaweli system H as a pilot project since 2002
to find out a methodology, which can be used as a complete solution for water management problems in major irrigation
schemes. The project provides a legal water right to users, but users have to actively participate and contribute for the
sustainable operation and maintenance of secondary and tertiary canal system. The present study is aimed to estimate
the value of current level of resource mobilization by farmers and farmers’ willingness to pay for sustainable irrigation
system maintenance in order to provide improved irrigation services in the long run. The findings of the study show that
the current level of resource mobilization varies from Rs 1450-2275 per/ha/annum (US$15-23) at 2005 prices. Further
farmers are willing to pay Rs 599-890 (US$ 6-9) per/ha/year in addition to the current level of resource mobilization to
ensure the long-term sustainability of infrastructure and to achieve improved irrigation services. The willingness to pay
value is positively related to household income, farm size, location of irrigation canal and type of major crop cultivated.
The willingness to pay expressed needs to be considered by policy makers for feasible policy formulations to meet the
future cost escalations and to ensure sustainability of irrigation infrastructure.
History
School
Architecture, Building and Civil Engineering
Research Unit
Water, Engineering and Development Centre (WEDC)
Published in
WEDC Conference
Citation
AHEEYAR, M.M., 2006. Willingness to pay for improved irrigation services in Mahaweli system H. IN: Fisher, J. (ed). Sustainable development of water resources, water supply and environmental sanitation: Proceedings of the 32nd WEDC International Conference, Colombo, Sri Lanka, 13-17 November 2006, pp. 227-230.
This work is made available according to the conditions of the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International (CC BY-NC-ND 4.0) licence. Full details of this licence are available at: https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/