3 9. The measurement infrastructure varies from simple dividers within a stream or canal that divert water according to established ratios to measuring devices that may continuously record volumetric water flow and transmit the information instantly to computers at a central monitoring station. The operation and maintenance of the water distribution system and the enforcement of water rights is increasingly done by water user associations and communities rather than public authorities. Similar, in cases of dispute, the water user association is typically the first arbiter.

# _Experience_ **_with Administrative_** _Methods of_ **_Water_** _Allocation_

10. The track record of such administered systems of water allocation has not been impressive. Despite growing water scarcity and the high costs of hydraulic infrastructure, water is typically underpriced and used wastefully, the infrastructure is frequently poorly conceived, built, and operated, and delivery is often unreliable. At the same time, there are high fiscal costs stemming from the construction of hydraulic infrastructure; from the institutional bureaucracy to support the design and execution of the projects and to set and collect water tariffs; and from the cost of operating and maintaining the system. Many large multipurpose hydraulic projects (irrigation, hydropower, flood control, urban use, etc.) were undertaken on political rather than economic grounds (see Box 1). Costs tend to be high

# **Box 1. Public Hydraulic Projects**

Governments from both developed and developing countries have invested heavily in public hydraulic projects. However, the results have often been well below expectations. For example, by the end of 1993, the Government of Peru had spent $3.4 billion (in constant 1993 dollars) on nine coastal multipurpose projects. Although some of these projects had been in execution for over two decades, they had realized only 6.6 percent of their planned expansion in irrigation and none of their planned hydropower generation capacity. While the primary justification of these projects was irrigation, the estimated cost per hectare of these schemes at completion ranged from $10,000 to $56,000, even while irrigated land in these areas sells for about $3,000 (see World Bank 1995).

Water resources development in Asian countries typically accounts for 20 to 25 percent of total public investment. However, in Sri Lanka, the Mahaweli Development Program alone, at its peak, absorbed 6 percent of GDP and 44 percent of public investment expenditure! The costs of land development, excluding headworks, were $12,000-$15,000 per hectare at 1987 prices, compared to $3,000-$5,000 in other Asian countries. Even with a double cropped paddy, the economic returns from the earlier, and cheaper, projects were found to be low or negative. Since not even O&M costs could subsequently be recovered, new settlers benefited from massive subsidies and their spatial distribution, if anything, aggravated social tensions (see Frederiksen, Berkoff, and Barber 1993). Similarly, the performance of Pakistan's 13,000 public tubewells has been poor. Despite these tubewells receiving 55 percent of total O&M expenditures even though they account for only 10 percent of irrigation water supplies, their pumping capacity declined an average of 4-6 percent annually, with 20 to 45 percent of public tubewells not operating at any one time as compared to 10 percent of private tubewells (see World Bank 1993).