Pro-Poor Farm Power Policy for West Bengal
Analytical background for a Policy Pilot
Manisha Shah, Sujata Das Chowdhury and Tushaar Shah
For two decades, agricultural growth in West Bengal was stifled by a perverse and restrictive permit system that made it difficult, costly and time-consuming for farmers to get electricity connection for a tubewell. In 2011, through a radical move, liberalization of permits made it easier, cheaper and quicker for farmers to install electric tubewells. Increased tubewell density increased irrigation access to well owners as well as water buyers. However, a parallel policy of metering electric tubewells and charging farmers commercial tariff all but nullified gains to water buyers who have to surrender the bulk of the irrigation surplus as water price. This Highlight proposes that the farm power pricing policy can be tweaked to make West Bengal's water markets pro-poor and outlines the hypothesis underlying a pilot project ITP has initiated in Monoharpur village of Birbhum district.
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