1
Institutional Changes for IMT1 in Thailand—What’s Wrong?
Han Hongyun, Ph.D/ Professor
Chinese Academy for Rural Development, Zhejiang University, Hangzhou, Zhejiang,
310029, China
Email: hhyzlg@yahoo.com.cn
Abstract: From the perspective of institutional structures over irrigation systems, there are
three stages of water development in Thailand: traditional farmer managed irrigation systems,
irrigation systems under governments’ responsibilities, and participatory management. Thai
Government has specified participatory management framework to enhance the mutual
understanding among the Government and user farmers. Unfortunately, this top-down
participatory management was largely a failure due to a shortage of clarified laws, overlapped
irrigation management agencies, and lack of water pricing policies; in addition to the formal
institutional arrangements, the broken down of social cohesion, changing social patterns, lack
of conflict resolution mechanisms, and shortage of leaders resulting from dependence culture.
All these diminish the effectiveness and efficiency of institutional arrangements for water
resources in Thailand.
The concentration of power in the bureaucracy, the absence of accountability, the lack of an
effective judicial mechanism, and existence of too many agencies with overlapping policy
mandates are the direct reasons for the failure of IMT in Thailand; the lack of consistence
between new rules and indigenous rules is the fundamental causes resulted in inefficiency of
water management. Accountability is problematic in irrigation systems with officials’ primary
accountability upward to their supervisors and to the political level.
0. Introduction
Irrigation is the largest consumer of water in the world. In Thailand, it
accounts for 90% of annual withdrawals. Increasing the productivity of water
lies at the heart of water management because of the high volume of
agricultural water consumption. A number of countries changed their
institutional structures over irrigation systems in the nineties due to the failure
of state control, shortage of financial capacity, and the aim of poverty
alleviation, the most important one among them is participatory management;
nevertheless, there is no agreement as to what institutions will accomplish
these goals (Acheson, 2000), “countries that have transferred management of
resources to local users have experienced mixed outcomes” (Katon et al., 2001,
p.2), “it is not obvious what approach or approaches work best for
decentralizing management and increasing the role of users in irrigation
2
management” (Easter, 2000, P. 75).
Thai Government has specified participatory management framework to
ensure the mutual understanding among governments and user farmers.
Essentially all of these pilot experiences have failed to produce sustainable,
self-reliant water user organizations (WUOs), “farmer organizations and
artificial government partnerships with them have all collapsed after the end of
the projects” (Suiadee, 2002, p.300). Judging from the low number of Water
Users Cooperatives (WUCs), the level of activity of cooperatives in Thailand
is quite ambiguous (Molle et al., 2002), the process of IMT have not
progressed smoothly due to the lack of comprehensive understanding on
institutional preconditions for IMT. Under a belief of academic and policy
debate about appropriate resource management directions will benefit from a
detailed and localized understanding of the way in which IMT can work best
or why IMT cannot function well, this paper is to examine the institutional
changes for IMT in Thailand, including the changes in water laws, water
administration, and water policies.
Using an institutional and ecological mode of analysis, this study aims to
increase our understanding of an important area of the intersection between
socio-economic and water resource management, and to find out the likely
adverse factors resulting in the failure of IMT in Thailand. The remaining of
this research report is as follows: in section 1, changes of institutional
arrangements over irrigation systems in Thailand are given, a historical review
of the development process of irrigation systems in Thailand will benefit the
understanding of institutional changes for IMT; in section 2, what was wrong
in Thailand is argued, in this part, I hope to find out institutional factors
resulting in the failure of IMT in Thailand; finally, short conclusions are
drawn.
1. Changing institutional arrangements over irrigation systems
1.1 Traditional farmer management irrigation systems (FMIS)
In the early days, more than two thousand FMIS existed in the northern parts
of Thailand alone, which played a critical role in ensuring sustainable
agricultural development and in providing legitimate imposition of social
control and conflict resolution until the beginning of 20th century (Shivakoti,
2000). Based on canal networks, farmers were organized and formed water
3
user committees. Under socially and culturally embodied custom and norms,
each household was obliged to contribute labor, construction materials such as
bamboo, logs and stones, and tools for the construction of weirs based on their
landholding and economic status. Since the weir as well as entire irrigation
system was considered as common property, the households had common
rights and responsibility for system repair and maintenance.
In general, a FMIS committee was divided into two levels for efficient
management of water resource, including a system level and a canal level. The
former was the main body for O&M of the entire systems, while the later
mainly took responsibility for the management of secondary canals. The
district head was the chief of system level organization and the sub-district
head become deputy chief at village level with the subordinate of village heads.
There were some other positions such as water messenger and ditch headman
(See Figure 1). Weir Chief was the main position established at system level
even after intervention of RID, who possessed highest authority and made
final decision in all affairs; the deputy chief assisted in overseeing water usage
by member of the system, allocating water through zoneman, helped in
maintenance by checking labor and equipment during repair work, and also
assisted zoneman in conflict resolution. Water messenger was responsible for
delivering messages, such as scheduling of meeting, water delivery, repair and
maintenance and amount and type of equipment, from chief or deputy chief to
water users and also reporting back to the chief (Shivakoti, 2000).
These traditional irrigation systems provided a strong basis through heavy
demands on labor and a complex social organization for wet season rice
cultivation,
the
entire
weir
community
was
an
autonomous
unit
technologically and organizationally. Consequently, the communities had easy
access to and control over means of water allocation as well as enforcement of
norms such as regulation and dispute settlement; the autonomy was often
expressed symbolically in the weir spirit cult. The cohesion and social bounds
among members are the main reasons for the success and sustainability of
traditional schemes which have been under existence for hundreds of years.
1.2 Government’s control over irrigation systems
Historically FMISs have experienced two significant periods of change over
the last century. “The first, between 1888 to 1933, concerned a periods of
4
extensive administrative and governmental reform. The second, beginning
around the mid 1950’s, involves the modernization of agriculture and the shift
from subsistence farming to production for market”(TanKimYong, 1995, p.22).
As the largest foreign exchange earner, the increased demand for rice export
played a critical role in the process of government’s takeover of FMISs. The
growth of urbanization and international trade have led to the emergence of
large-scale
irrigation
projects
sponsored
by
government
because
policy-makers realized in the 1960s that ‘agricultural-export-led-growth’
would require the development of and the control over water resources. With
her political power through existing irrigation codes and limited financial
resources, Thai Government intervened in communal irrigation technology by
establishing water-intake regulators at traditional FMISs, and also established
a number of new irrigation systems managed by salaried personnel. Direct
government involvement in irrigation began in 1902 when a canal department
was formed to develop lowland waterways, control floods, and build and
operate minor irrigation works. In 1927 the canal department was reorganized
as the RID (Projects department, 1986).
Given the situation of political and economic transformation, almost all FMISs
were taken control by Government under the clause of technical improvement,
the RID was responsible for construction, water allocation, O&M of irrigation
systems (See Figure 2). As a result, farmers lost their autonomy and were
forced to greater technological dependence on Government. The increasing
demand of turnover of irrigation systems from farmers to governments is not
founded in an altruistic motive of policies; in many parts of Asia, governments
tried to construct large-scale irrigation systems to extend irrigated areas to
meet the demand for rice export and cash crops (Barker et al., 1984, p.26).
1.3 Participatory Intervention of Government
Since the 1970s, largely driven by government fiscal shortages and strong
push of donors, governments around the world have adopted programs to
devolve responsibility for irrigation management to water user associations
(WUAs), couched in the idiom of community empowerment, participatory
management, accountability, capacity building, cost sharing, economic
efficiency, and privatization(ADB, 2001). The first attempt of participatory
intervention of government started in the year 1962, a first attempt to design
5
WUOs was recorded in 1963 in the northeast and led to the foundation of the
first legal WUA in 1966 (Poolswat, 1992). In 1967, RID introduced the
concept of WUA in Northeast Thailand and in 1968 in Central Thailand.
For the effective implementation of irrigation project and encouraging people’
participation, the Government initiated land consolidation program in the year
1969, the aim was to delegate irrigation and drainage control to farmers. The
current constitution also stated that the state must promote and support people
participation in natural resource management and determining policies and
decision-making in all levels. In addition, the Sub-district Councils and
Sub-district Administrative Organizations (SAOs) Act (1994) stated that
SAOs must be allocated power to develop plans and implementation to
conserve their natural resources (Kijtewachakul, 2003). Moreover, the
government tried to reduce the time and work load of farmers by appointing
irrigation technicians and staff for better water allocation and distribution at
the farm level.
After the well recognition of people’s participation and governance on O&M
of irrigation systems by the government, the farmer-managed systems in the
country have been facilitated and supported by the Government. Although
management responsibilities have been shared by government and farmers,
government owns the large and medium scale irrigation systems, farmers are
only responsible to manage on-farm irrigation canals. RID manages, operates
and controls almost all the irrigation systems up to tertiary level on behalf of
the Government, farmers under current participatory management are allowed
to maintain and operate their systems only at the field channel level .“Donors
strongly pushed for the establishment of water user organizations. This
top-down initiative was largely a failure, in particular in Thailand”(Molle et al.,
2002, p.13).
2. Institutional factors leading to the failure of IMT
Over the course of the past thirty years a consensus has begun to emerge that
management of resource is basically an institutional problem, according to
Johansson, “the term ‘water institution’ broadly refers to the legal institutions
of water distribution, to water management and allocation institutions or water
administration, and water policies”(2001, p.21). Here I want to follow North’s
institutional mode and focus on formal and informal institutional arrangements
6
for water allocation and management in Thailand, and try to find out the likely
institutional factors resulting in the failure of IMT.
2.1 Formal institutional arrangement in Thailand
2.1.1 Inconsistence in laws concerned with water resources
According to section 1355 of the Civil and Commercial Code (1923), “a
riparian landowner has no right to withdraw water in the amount exceeding his
reasonable need to the prejudice of other land abutting the same waterway”.
The private irrigation act (1939) allows the Government to control all kinds of
private irrigation except those which are temporary or serve an area less than
200 rai. The Public Irrigation Act (1942) empowers the Government to control
the use of water for agriculture only in the “irrigated areas”, where farmers
must obtain permission from government and pay a fee when water is drawn
from irrigation canal. The land consolidation act (1974) is applied only to land
under the land consolidation area. Property rights that assure users the ability
to derive benefits from resources over the long term are necessary to induce
them to bear the management cost, “devolution programs that transfer
responsibilities for resource management to local users often fail to transfer
commensurate rights”(Katon et al., 2001). When irrigators are asked to take
over maintenance work, but do not have rights to the water in the systems,
user farmers have no incentives taking responsibility for irrigation system
management.
Thailand is a country with a large number of laws relating to water resources,
but it does not have a comprehensive water law which establishes a
comprehensive framework for water utilization and management. A serious
attempt to reform the water law started around 1991 when a variety of water
problems appeared. The first draft national water resource bill faced strong
resistance from the authorities because it will loosen state control over water
resources and state officials still believe that local people could not manage
natural resources.
2.1.2 Overlapped irrigation management agencies
One of the big issues with water management in Thailand is the lack of clear
guidelines on water resource development supported by the Government.
There are 28 agencies in five ministries working for water resource
development and two national committees attached to the prime minister’s
7
office—the national water resources committee and the national rural
development committee—are, in theory, responsible for drafting water
guidelines and coordinating activities of these agencies (See Figure 1). One of
the most difficult tasks to implement IMT is that not all stakeholders gain
from the proposed changes. The big losers are likely to be the over-staffed
irrigation departments and water supply agencies (Easter, 2000).
There is no single administrative body that takes responsibility for water
quality planning and management of the basin as a whole. Up to now,
integrated water resource management has not yet been put into practice in
Thailand. Fragmented departments are responsible for water allocation and
management, each has her own aim to implement water policies. no
legally-recognized apex body is able to guide the operation of such
departments to the same direction, an integrated regional development is
clearly inhibited by the departmentalized mode of planning on sectoral issues
without proper co-ordination mechanisms.
2.1.3 Lack of water pricing policies
Water pricing has so far not been tackled in a truly market determined
framework even in developed economies such as the USA, where irrigated
water is still supplied at nominal rates unrelated to costs of supply, the reasons
for this are that in most countries water services are publicly owned and their
prices are administratively determined. In Thailand, there exists some legal
basis for adequate water pricing in principle, two most important acts for cost
recovery are the Irrigation Act of 1942 and the Land Consolation Act of 1974.
The State Act of 1942 allow the RID to impose a charge of up to baht 5 per rai
for irrigators and for all other users. With the passage of time, the five baht
maximum fee became badly outdated and in fact uneconomic to collect
(Project Department, 1986). The revenues siphoned off from rice cultivation
by the State through the mechanism of the rice premium not only provide the
causes for subsidizing water utilization, and in turn result in the difficulty for
water charge corresponding to an increase in production costs which cannot
easily be passed to the consumer. No fee is charged for irrigated water in
Thailand (Molle, 2002), the costs associated with producing irrigated water are
positive and inevitably borne by the government (Kumar and Young, 1996).
At the same time, water management deficiency has compelled farmers to
8
make considerable investments in pumping devices in order to access water.
Thai farmers have been very responsiveness to water scarcity, in particular by
developing conjunctive use and pumping capacities (Molle, 2001) and have
increased their reliance on groundwater to deal with dry season shortages due
to the conflicting government policies, farmers have been subsidized to sink
shallow wells as an alternative water source (Flatters and Horbulyk, 1995).
2.2 Informal institutional arrangements in Thailand
2.2.1 The broken down of social cohesion
There is little question that appropriately designed modern irrigation works
can enhance the efficiency of many farmer-organized systems, the large and
medium scale irrigation systems are playing an important role in the
development of irrigated agriculture in Thailand (See Table 1 and 2). The
construction of large and medium scale irrigation systems has frequently been
funded by external sources, and these external sources substantially reduce the
need for mobilizing labor to maintain the system. But interventions designed
by outsiders that ignore the potential disruption of the mutual dependencies
and reciprocal relationships among farmers may cause more harm than good
(Ostrom and Gerdner, 1993).
Maintenance is essential to preserve access to water for those whose plot is not
located along canals. In most areas, farmers are now widely contributing to
cleaning and grass-cutting by gathering money, huge excavators are
widespread nowadays and can be easily rented for a reasonable price. It has
also been observed that the burden of maintenance, as well as on-farm
development, has partly been transferred to local budgets. With the
decentralization and the possibility for farmers to have a say in the allocation
of some funds, more and more operations of ditch digging or dredging are
passed on to the sub-district or to district budgets.
The cooperative maintenance of the ditches was the main reason for the
farmers of a WUG. Physical capital including any engineered works, such as
dikes and irrigation canals, provides a basis for communication and
dependence among farmers. When labor is the primary medium of exchange,
investment in public infrastructure is easy to monitor. “Shared norms that
reduce the cost of monitoring and sanctions activities can be viewed as social
capital to be utilized in solving CPR problems”(Ostrom, 1990, p.36).
9
2.2.2 The heterogeneity of social patterns
Social scientists are paying increased attention to the implications of
heterogeneity,
heterogeneity of individuals
sharing a resource
and
heterogeneity of the resource itself, in the management of commons (Mcpeak,
2003). An important factor contributing to the success of WUGs comes with
situations in which farmers heavily depend on irrigated agriculture for their
livelihoods. Farmers with much land or large families may be more interested
by water issues, while those with poor water conditions have turned their
attention to other activities (Katon et. al., 2001; Molle et al., 2002). Some
farmers using an irrigation system begin to obtain significant off-farm income
and the resource was thus reduced to marginal economic importance in
Thailand. Part-time farmers have little time to devote to collective action and,
especially if they are in a favorable location within the hydraulic network, they
may be little interested in costly personal investments in terms of commitment
aimed at raising the productivity of an activity which is only marginal for
them.
Meanwhile, more and more new land users substantiated property right issue
to land and water resources. The new users were often either new industrial or
commercial firms, or absentee landowners. The entry of these new users often
meant that traditional methods of settling disputes and of cooperative resource
management broke down and also increased the total demand for water in a
given system (Flatters and Horbulyk, 1995).
2.2.3 The lack of conflict resolution mechanisms
Thailand is a rice-leading country in which irrigation water is an important
input factor in rice production. Industrialization, urbanization, and increasing
concerns over environment have increased the demand for limited water and
contributed to dry-season water shortages and created conflict over water,
including conflicts between water users among different sectors, within one
hydrologic region, and even in one water user groups. Rules are generally
devised with compliance costs in mind, which means that methods must be
devised to ascertain that a rule has been violated, to measure the extent of the
violation, and to apprehend the violator (North, 1990). Most commonly village
headmen and sub-district heads, more rarely other local leaders, are called in
to solve a dispute; a compromise is found in order to avoid social disruptions
10
because mutual monitoring and enforcement “involve relatively high personal
costs and produce public goods available to everyone” (Ostrom, 1990, p.94).
The lack of conflict resolution mechanism contributed partly to the low
efficiency of water management.
2.2.4 The lack of leaders resulting from dependence culture
As a social process of resource management performed in a given historical
context and constraining physical environment, “the patterns and effectiveness
in managing water appears to be closely related to the characteristics of the
society concerned, its history, social structure and culture”(Molle, 2001, p.13).
Within strategies to promote decentralization, improvement of the capacity of
the human resources for decentralized planning is paramount, the lack of local
leadership is also a contributing factor to the failure of the WUOs. Values in
Thai society play a critical role in it.
Farmers try to obtain a change in their favor by approaching people with
adequate power and who are expected to behave as patrons. These
patron-client relationships are common in Thai society. Individualism and
avoidance also inhibit community participation in collective actions (Rubin
and Rubin, 1973). So local individuals are not willing to act as the leaders of
WUGs, or they are not ready to act as leaders due to the lack of confidence as
a leader due to following features: “first, most local elected officials serve
their cities part-time; second, local elected officials resent being trained; third,
local elected officials quickly become overwhelmed by the technical
complexity of the public issues; fourth, local elected officials tend to ‘over
manage’ and ‘under lead’; fifth, local elected officials choose not to develop
their governance capacity concerns the supply side of local elected
development (Coombs and Miller, 1999).
To manage possible conflict, it is quite important for local leaders to be taught
the political leadership skills necessary for effective governance that facilitate
consensus decisions, techniques for coalition building, a philosophy that
expresses the relationship between local water users and representatives of
local government. Usually, the Government is not often ready to provide
training policies to serve elected and appointed leaders. “Rather than create an
opportunity for teaching villagers self-help the higher officials, consistent with
their roles as benevolent patron, dominate all action and, in turn, seeks
11
compliance from the villagers”(Rubin and Rubin, 1973, p.271-272).
3. Conclusions
Thai Government has specified participatory management framework to
ensure the mutual understanding among governments and user farmers.
However, the bureaucrats lacking a comprehensive understanding of irrigation
systems, including formal and informal institutional arrangements over water
utilization and management, have contributed to the failure of IMT. Thai
water management institutions are suffering following shortcoming: a shortage
of clarified laws, overlapped irrigation management agencies, and water
pricing policies. In addition to the formal institutional arrangements, the
broken down of social cohesion, changing social patterns, the lack of conflict
resolution mechanisms, and shortage of leaders resulting from dependence
culture. All these diminish the effectiveness and efficiency of institutional
arrangements in resolving increasing competition for water resources in
Thailand.
So far the Government retains overall ownership and financial responsibility
for the system and control over the water resources, water users groups(WUGs)
are responsible for maintaining and operating their systems only at the tertiary
level. The fundamental issue with IMT is that while public agencies have
agreed to share the responsibilities with farmer organizations, there is no
significant change in the power relations between officials and user farmers
and no mutual accountability so far. Officials have no incentives to foster
independent WUAs, WUAs remain dependent on the public organization
legally, financially, and psychologically. At present, making irrigation systems
completely autonomous is risky due to the physical situation of irrigation
systems and the lack of local expertise, reforms need to be carried out
step-by-step; however, governments should persevere with reforms to improve
the accountability, while exercising overall control through strong regulatory
and consultative mechanisms. Accountability is especially problematic in
irrigation system management, with officials’ primary accountability upward
to their supervisors and to the political level.
The key to my argument is that institutional arrangements for IMT should vary
depending on the patterns of internal factors of a given group and external
factors outside the domain of those affected. The fundamental issue with IMT
12
is that while public agencies have agreed to share the responsibilities with
farmer organizations, there is no significant change in the power relations
between officials and user farmers and no mutual accountability so far. At
present, making irrigation systems completely autonomous is risky due to the
characteristics of public goods and physical situation and the lack of local
expertise, reforms need to be carried out step-by-step; however, governments
should persevere with reforms to improve incentives and accountability, while
exercising overall control through strong regulatory and consultative
mechanisms.
IMT is the abbreviation of “irrigation management transfer”.
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15
People’s Irrigation System
Project
Level
State Irrigation System
Irrigation Engineering

Project
Engineer

Water Master

Zone Man
Farm
Level
Committees of Water
Users Association

Chairman and
Central
Committee
Irrigation Committees at
Village Level

Common Irrigator

Deputy

Water Messenger
Government Official at
Provincial/District Level

District Officer

Deputy

Agriculturalists
Village
Government
Officials

Subdistrict
Officers

Village Headman
Deputy
Chief and Vice
Chief of People’s
Irrigation Project
Irrigation Committee at
Village Level

Ditch Headman

Deputy

Water Messenger
Government
Officials
at
District and Subdistrict Level

District Officer

Deputy

Agriculturalists

Subdistrict Official
Village
Government
Officials

Village Headman

Deputy
Water Users
Water Users
Figure 1 The Organization Chart of State and People’ Irrigation Systems
Source: adapted from “water resources laws in Thailand, department of energy development and promotion,
Japan International cooperation agency, the Japanese institute of irrigation & drainage, 1999, p.44.
Figure2 Organization Chart of Royal Irrigation Department in Thailand
Source: adapted from Suiadee, W., 2002. “Organizational Change for Participatory Irrigation Management”,
Report of the APO Seminar on Organizational Change for Participatory Irrigation Management, Philippines,
P.297.
16
Chairman
Secretarial
Deputy Chairman for Water
Operation and Maintenance
Secretary
Deputy Chairman for
Other Activities
Chief of Section/
Chief of Canal
Registrar
Treasurer
Liaison Officer
Chief of Ditch
Member
Figure 3 Typical Organization Chart of WUG
Table 1 Characteristics of Water Resources Development Projects
Size of project
Large-scale
Medium-scale
Small-scale
Investment cost
(million Baht)
> 200
< 200
>4
Storage capacity
(MCM)
> 100
< 100
-
Water surface
area(km2)
> 15
< 15
-
Irrigation area
(ha)
> 12,800
< 12,800
-
No. of
project
90
825
8,550
Source: adapted from Suiadee, W., 2002. “Organizational Change for Participatory Irrigation Management”,
Report of the APO Seminar on Organizational Change for Participatory Irrigation Management, Philippines,
P.295.
Table 2 Land Utilization in Agriculture, 1999-2003: Unit: 1,000 rai
Items
1999
2000
2001
2002
2003
Total land area
320,697
320,697
320,697
320,697
320,697
Agriculture
131,341
131,196
131,060
Farm holding land
131,341
131,196
131,060
Size of farm (rai)
24
23
23
Irrigation 3
30,789
31,238
30,777
31,231
31,454
Area irrigated by large and medium
22,382
22,665
22,008
22,181
22,180
scale-irrigation systems
Area irrigated by small
8,407
8,573
8,769
9,050
9,274
scale-irrigation systems
Source : 1/ Royal Forest Department, 2/Department of Fisheries, 3/ Royal Irrigation Department.
http://www.oae.go.th/statistic/yearbook/2003/indexe.html.