Pricing of Irrigation Service in India (1854-1959)

The object of this note is to try to set the much-discussed problem of irrigation charges in the perspective of history. The author feels that the chief aid in answering some of the questions raised in the present debate on irrigation pricing, and by the policies of various state governments of increasing the overall water tariff, can be obtained through an enquiry concerning the way in which the whole complex of irrigation charges in India has grown up over the past decades.