Factores de éxito para proyectos de BPM

In many ways, the hierarchical structure of Wade’s Irrigation Department in Andhra Pradesh mimics itself in Maharashtra. Given that the Surya project was handed over for at least a decade to the Command Area Development Authority, there is some overlap between the general structure for the Maharashtra Irrigation Department and the organizational structure of the Surya Project (see Fig. 3.2, below). Within the Surya Project there is one division under an Executive Engineer, who is responsible for the maintenance of irrigation works and management of irrigation in the field. The Executive Engineer is responsible for executing irrigation policy as per the Superintendent Engineer’s directives. The Superintendent Engineer in the Irrigation Circle Office is the administrative head at the regional level. He has full authority to sanction the allocation of irrigation water in the region for different purposes, and approves the annual utilization of storages, as well as the irrigation program from year- to-year. The Executive Engineer of the project plays an important role in the day-to-day supervision, management and regulation of canals. He is assisted by: a) Assistant/ Deputy Engineers; b) Sectional Officers; c) a Canal Officer; and d) Measurers.

Operations and maintenance tasks remain the responsibility of the project's construction wing. Within the construction wing, each division has a subdivision that is entrusted with operations and maintenance tasks.

Figure 3.2 - Organizational Setup of Surya Multipurpose Irrigation Project. Source: WAPCOS (1996). Socio Economic Survey Report: Evaluation Studies for Command Area Development Programme New Delhi. Surya-Maharashtra. New Delhi: Water and Power Consultancy Services (India) Ltd.

Contrary to Wade (who in his Andhra Pradesh study posited a correlation between corruption and a high turnover/transfer rate of engineers), my Maharashtra case study argues that the Junior Section Engineers and Canal Officers on Surya Project have largely avoided transfers to other locations and managed to keep their positions in a tribal belt for two decades. Lower level bureaucrats tend to be information-rich, have a good understanding of how local society and politics work, and by virtue of their residence in the command area of dam projects often have close relations with the dominant caste-groups in rural/tribal regions of India. I use the term ‘recalcitrant

bureaucrats’ to explain both the resilience and the ability of these Junior Engineers to retain their posting in a tribal belt for such an extended period. I attribute their staying power to their ability not only to earn unofficial rents from corruption, but also their skills at navigating the administrative system and local politics.

This case study thus focuses on lower level bureaucrats who prefer to remain in tribal areas of Maharashtra and who are central to the entrenched nexus between local bureaucrats, politicians and powerful economic interests (Meeta & Rajivlochan, 1997). Such recalcitrant bureaucrats in water departments prefer to remain in their locations because their particular regions attract huge subsidies and cash transfers from the state and central governments. To their further advantage, such regions usually have illiterate populations, weak structures of checks and balances, and administrative systems that continue to function in isolation from other systems of self-government that have evolved in tribal areas of Maharashtra since the late 1970s.

This administrative structure is important to analyze and understand if one is to gain a better grasp of how and why development projects in tribal areas often fail to deliver benefits to local people there. This case study should also be considered in the broader context of political and social ferment within contemporary irrigation politics in Maharashtra, including growing contestation and disputes between cities, rural hinterlands, and various other regions in the state over allocation of water resources (Wagle et al, 2012).

Within this study I present data on the resistance of this lower section of the Irrigation Department bureaucracy towards the stratagems of Senior Engineers,

highlighting fissures between executive-level Senior Engineers and lower-level Section and Assistant Engineers. This focus on lower-level bureaucrats supports and affirms the recent direction that geographers and anthropologists (Corbridge et al, 2005; Shah, 2010; Gupta, 2012) have charted in researching frontline bureaucracies responsible for supervising and administering welfare and development programs in rural India. This approach is crucial in order to understand the role of lower-level bureaucracy in rural, tribal areas of India which has often been blamed for poor development outcomes (Government of India, 2008; World Bank, 2011; Meeta & Rajivlochan, 1997).

Moreover, this study has been conducted in the context of a productive irrigation project. Unlike protective irrigation projects, in a productive irrigation project water is not rationed, and is available to meet revenue and food production objectives. Productive irrigation is characterized by high irrigation intensity, is demand oriented, and production is geared towards the marketplace. The operational design and organizational structure of productive irrigation projects are geared towards meeting demand for water, which is not scarce in this context (see Table 3.3, below, to further understand the difference between protective and productive irrigation).

Table 3.3: Protective and Productive Irrigation - Source: Narain (2003)