Water Rights System:Is It Feasible for India?

Let us face it. The major threat to the sustain-ability of our irrigated agriculture is going to come neither from the frequently alluded ‘utilisation gap’, i.e., the gap between our water resource bounty and the extent of its use, nor from the so called ‘irrigation gap’, i.e., the gap between our irrigation demand and the irrigation potential created so far, but from the persistence of the ‘incentive gap’, i.e., the gap between the scarcity ‘ value of water and the value underlying the current pattern of water utilisation and management. In fact, both the utilisation gap and the irrigation gap could be reduced, if not eliminated altogether, by correcting the incentive gap which is evidently a product of the existing institutions governing water acquisition, distribution, and utilisation.