7. PROJECT OPERATION AND MANAGEMENT

 

7.1   General Principles of Administrative Organisation

 

Each settler must deal with a minimum number of officials whom he knows well and to whom he is well known.

 

The project’s economy requires a constant technical, economic and sociological moni­toring through periodical surveys and an analytical accounting procedure. These cannot be implemented if decision-making and control powers are scattered and diluted. On the other hand, the project’s success requires the co-ordinated collaboration of specialists presently available in various departments. A multiplicity of “responsible” departments, as now is the case, leads to overlapping, interfering and sometimes con­tradictory actions. The support of financial agencies to such a complex project can only be extended through a single authority by means of well defined financial commit­ments.

 

It is, therefore, recommended that the administrative organisation pf the project be set up as the field organisation of the Mahaweli Development Board, sole partner to the farmers in the development of the area and submitted to the supervision of all relevant government departments through the Mahaweli Development Board’s board of direc­tors. The Mahaweli Development Board Act gives the Board the necessary powers to set up such an organisation.

 

The field organisation will be made up of four major divisions — (1) Water Manage­ment, (2) Agricultural Production, (3) Community Development and Training, and

 

(4) Marketing and Credit Co-ordination. The activities of these four divisions need be co-ordinated by the single administrative authority of the M. D. B., through its local representative or “Project Manager”. At the least in the early stages of project implementation, he should be a top government representative with management experience, in order to facilitate collaboration between this new organisation and the existing administrative set-up. In a similar manner, D. R. 00, who already are involved in agricultural development, may be associated with the project’s organisation at sub­-area level.

 

While adopting the existing organisation Agricultural Productivity Committees, Co­operatives, etc. generally it is proposed to try out on an experimental area of 10,000 acres village organisation enjoying effective autonomy. In this 10,000 acres each village and cluster will manage its own affairs by means of village and cluster committees. The cluster committees will be the main links between the producers and the adminis­tration.

 

The responsibility of the village and cluster committees in the experimental area will cover irrigation matters at block level, implementation of cropping patterns proposed by agricultural officers and accepted by the committee, supervision of local co-operative branches, granting and repayment of loans, application of settlement regulations and relations with the administration.

 

Links with the administration will be established on a partnership basis. This requires that village and cluster committees meet with the administration at least once a cropping season to discuss proposed programmes of irrigation, cultivation patterns, supply of inputs, credit and marketing. The final agreement will state each side’s commitments and will provide for sanctions for possible shortcomings. Officials will be in a position of technical assistants and a contractual type of economy will be gradually aimed at to replace in the long run, present links of dependence.

 

The proposed organisation will, as any living structure, evolve with time to best adapt itself to the development of the project area. It is hoped that villagers will progressively take increasing responsibilities over from the administration so that the latter’s responsi­bilities will gradually be reduced.

 

If the experiment proves successful in a period of time it will with Government approval be extended to cover the Project area.

 

7.2  Organisation

 

The Water Management Division is organised along the patterns of the irrigation net­work. Two engineers at each tank are assisted by units of maintenance and other technical staff necessary both for the maintenance as well as the design and execution of minor repair works. More elaborate designs are studied by the main unit at Division level from where heavy equipment necessary for their implementation will be allocated. For operational purposes, the network is divided into six canal reaches each under the operational responsibility of an irrigation engineer. They will be assisted by 41 Block Overseers each in charge of the distribution of water in a block. Ditch riders one for each turnout area chosen by the farmers will distribute the water to the farms. The maintenance of the channels and roads within the turnout area will also be the responsi­bility of the farmers.

 

The Agricultural Production Division will be in charge of extension operations, control of seed multiplication and supervision of farmers’ demonstration plots. agricultural Officers at sub-area level work in close co-operation with the community development officers and the reach engineer. This team is assisted by a public relations officer per­manently at the disposal of farmers in need of information or guidance. At block level, a team of similar structures is manned by executive officers of instructor level.

 

The Community Development and Training Division comprises of two units, one in charge of community development programmes and the other in charge of the training of farmers. The structures of the first unit are similar to those of the Agricultural Division. The Training Unit will be responsible for the training requirements of the project.

 

The above three divisions have direct executive responsibilities, whereas the Marketing and Credit Division has a small but top level staff to ensure the necessary co-ordination and planning of these activities which remain outside the project’s administration and yet require to be adopted to the general development pattern of the project area. This Division establishes the necessary statistics to determine and discuss with the People’s Bank overall credit requirements and to plan transport, supply and storage requirements.

 

The Project Manager is assisted by an administrative bureau for general administrative and financial purposes and by a sociological and economic unit to improve the planning of the project’s operations by analysing qualitative and quantitative results and feeding the conclusions back into the planning procedure.

 

3 Management Staff

 

Most of the experienced staff required is available among the personnel of the Ministries concerned with the different aspects of agricultural development. These personnel should be detached from their departments to the MDB. The additional personnel necessary could be recruited from outside the public service.

 

The requirements of the top level staff during the peak period is given below.

Staff Requirements and Procurement

 


Administrative                           Not yet              Ministry of            Ministry of            Other

      Origin                                  determined         Agriculture            Irrigation                Depts.      Total

          Senior Officers                      ..                                                         5                             1                         1                         2                9

          Officers             ..                                                               ..                                                          6                           14                       14                       32              66

          Instruction level                   ..                                                    24                           68                      52                       96            240

                  

                   Total ..                                                                                    ..                                                    35                           83                       47                     130            315

 

 


The supporting staff, minor employees and skilled and unskilled workmen total to 948.

 

All the top level staff will receive a special preliminary training at the In-Service Training Centres, Agricultural Schools and such. This training will cover technical aspects of development but more attention will be given to socio-psychological factors of human relations with the agricultural population.

 

7.4   Costs

The initial investment cost for operation and management of the project is estimated at Rs. 24.93 million of which the foreign component is Rs.12.0 million ($2.0 million). The works envisaged are the construction of offices, stores, workshops and residential buildings for the staff and the purchase of vehicles and heavy equipment.

 

The annual cost of maintenance of the irrigation network is estimated at Rs.6.1 million including a foreign component of Rs.2.0 million ($ 0.33 million). The annual cost of project operation and management after the 20th year of operation is Rs.14.2 million, the foreign component of which is Rs.1.52 million ($ 0.25 million). The details are shown in annex.3, under cost estimates.

 

7.5   Land Tenure

 

Land will be allocated to the new settler following the procedures laid down in the Land Development Ordinance. The new settler will be given a land use permit, free of charge with a compulsory purchase of the land after five years development period, during which the settler must at least attain a 200 percent cropping intensity and have built a permanent house. In order to cover part of project capital costs and the initial value of undeveloped land, the purchase could be done in twenty five instalments of Rs.300/-per acre per year commencing from the sixth year after the farmers’ settlement, or at the rate of Rs.5,000 per acre payable in 20 equal instalments free of interest.

 

The settler who has purchased his land has the right to sell it in one plot to people who do not already own land in the area and who are eligible to purchase the land. The land can also be mortgaged or temporarily and partially leased in accordance with the Land Development Ordinance.

 

Present land owners in the project area will keep their status even if they are shifted to a new village. They will be charged no land development tax.

 

Present encroachers could not be penalised for their situation about which the Govern­ment had been lenient for so long. They should be submitted to a social integration procedure after which they would become owners of their land in the same way and at the same cost as new settlers. It is very important, however, that full and effective police measures be immediately taken by the Government to avoid any new encroachment in the project area. Once the project is implemented, measures should still be taken to avoid marginal encroachers and sales disguised as encroachments. The village commi­ttee’s responsibility should include this matter as well.

 

7.6   Collection of water rates 

 

The present water charges legislation is intricate and made cumbersome by contradictory provisions. However, the MDB is entitled to assess and eventually levy water charges.

 

The basis of water rates will be established so as not to exceed the legal rent paid by tenants to landowners up to a recent past, equivalent to nine bushels of paddy per season, i.e. Rs.250/- per acre per year. Even this rate will have to be gradually reached at Rs.50/- the first year, Rs.150/- the second and the full charge only from the third year of settlement.

 

Water rates will have to be first established on an area basis. Yet as the irrigation network allows for quantity measurement and as farmers will be asked to determine their own water requirements, the per acre basis could be replaced by a binomial formula taking gradually into consideration the quantity of water delivered as the farmers master water management requirements at the farm. The total basis of taxation would ap­proximately cover the full operating expenses of the development of the area. It is usually preferred that water charges be levied by a different organisation than the one in charge of water management. The Government Agents who already collect some taxes could also levy water rates directly from the farmers.

 

7.7   Co-operatives

 

Co-operatives will remain the basic organisation for the supply of inputs to the farmers, the marketing of their paddy and possibly other crops and for the supply of credit.

 

It is recommended that the existing organisations be adjusted to the project’s develop­ment so as to have one Primary MPCS at each sub-area and one block co-operative at each cluster with a branch in each village to collect the produce in stores which will be built on the project’s budget. Co-operatives will deliver paddy to the Paddy Marketing Board. The traditional marketing circuits will be used for other products unless and until new Boards are established for that purpose. These marketing circuits will have to be dimensioned to handle all the area’s production in close co-ordination with the Marketing and Credit Division of the Project Authority.

 

7.8      Credit Management

 

In order to ensure the regular repayment of loans the villagers’ collective responsibility will have to be engaged. This, in its turn, can only be made possible by entrusting the villagers’ organisations with the preliminary investigations for loan eligibility, with technical assistance from the extension services. Existing credit channels will be used for credit supply and the Credit Division of the Project Authority will interfere in the evaluation and co-ordination of overall credit requirements, in the area. The present branches of the People’s Bank in the project area will have to be maintained. Rural Banks will have to be established at sub-area level along with the Primary MPCS.

 

The use of funds will be controlled by the extension services as to their technical alloca­tion and by the villagers’ organisations in general. The produce marketed through co-operatives will serve as security for loan repayment. However, the best security on loans will be obtained through the combined effect of farmer education and drastic sanctions against defaulters who may, during the first years of project implementation, even be ejected from the settlement.

 

Village Organisations should, to a certain degree share a joint responsibility in loan repayment, as suggested by many farmers in the project area.

 

7.9   Re-location of Revenue Districts

 

At present the project area lies within three Revenue Districts, Anuradhapura (90% of area), Matale and Kurunegala (10%), and within six DROO Divisions. It is recommend­ed that these boundaries be relocated to include the whole project area in one single District and further sub-divided into nine DRO divisions, one at each sub-area level with a Grama Sevaka in each of the 47 clusters.