80 Ethics and Systems Thinking
Already Gujarat has made an effort in forming farmers cooperative (sic) for distribution
of water. They take water in bulk from the irrigation department and distribute it
amongst the members. This has resulted in better efficiency in use of water. (GOI,
1981, p157)The Water Technology Centre Study of Mahi-Kadana devoted a whole chapter to
irrigation cooperatives and proposed their introduction (WTC, 1983, pp288–
297). A senior official, K. M. Dave, also wrote (1983, p127) that:
The benefits of such water cooperatives have now come to be recognised by one and all.
It is a very powerful tool for optimising the returns from the irrigation projects. Moreo-
ver, such water cooperatives can also help in bringing out a total change in the status and
living conditions of the beneficiaries.In the first half of the 1980s, water cooperatives, in the plural, were part of the
common currency of discussion about farmers’ organization on canal irrigation in
India, and in 1986 one authority wrote that:
it has been accepted at all levels that the Water Co-operative offers the best solution for
economical and efficient water use and increased productivity (Shah, 1986, p9).The idea of water cooperatives is not new: they have been proposed in Maharash-
tra for at least two and a half decades. The Maharashtra State Irrigation Commis-
sion recommended in 1962 that the distribution of canal water should be entrusted
to cooperative societies of the irrigators. But attempts to trace back the various
favourable views about water cooperatives to actual institutions operating on the
ground always lead to the same place. Unlike other sources which mentioned
cooperatives in the plural, the recommendations of the 1980 Conference on Wara-
bandi (Singh, 1981) were careful to mention only a singular water cooperative in
Gujarat as an example of farmers’ organizations. This appears accurate, for again
and again references trace back to the same institution, the Mohini Water Coop-
erative Society or Mohini for short. In the WTC Report it is cited as ‘the first suc-
cessful irrigation cooperative in Gujarat’ (WTC, 1983, p291). It is described by V.
S. Sinha (1983), Area Development Commissioner, Surat, by Pant and Verma
(1983, pp23–4, citing Sinha), by K. M. Dave, Superintending Engineer and
Officer on Special Duty (1983), and by R. K. Patil. As Dave put it, Mohini ‘has
made tremendous all round impact and its name and fame have spread not only in
the entire state but also in the entire irrigation sector of this country at large’
(1983, p133). It was indeed the source of the statement in the Sixth Five-Year Plan
(Patil and Datye, 1986, p2).
This cooperative which has so influenced thinking has a good record. Founded
in 1978 it was assigned a CCA of about 450 hectares on the Bhestan minor of the
Kakrapar canal system, and began with 145 members. Over the years its member-
ship, area and intensity of irrigation grew. The government wholesaled water at