ABSTRACT

After a prolonged agrarian impasse, agricultural production in West Bengal, India, grew at an unprecedented rate in the 1980s, a process in which the expansion of groundwater irrigation played an important role. The growth of groundwater irrigation and agricultural production, however, decelerated from the early 1990s. This paper argues that the deceleration in groundwater irrigation development in West Bengal since 1995 is primarily attributed to the adoption of different regulatory policies in two ways: directly, through controlling the overall installation of tubewells or decelerating tubewell electrification; and indirectly, through high electricity pricing for water use in agriculture.

摘要

在长期的农业僵局之后，印度西孟加拉邦的农业生产在 1980 年代以前所未有的速度增长，地下水灌溉的扩大在这一过程中发挥了重要作用。然而，地下水灌溉和农业生产的增长从 1990 年代初开始减速。本文认为，自1995年以来西孟加拉邦地下水灌溉发展的减速主要归因于采取了两种不同的监管政策：直接，通过控制管井的整体安装或减速管井电气化；间接地，通过农业用水的高电价。