The Big Dams-versus-Small Dams controversy would have been laid to rest long ago had there been greater public awareness of the unbelievably poor track record of large irrigation projects in India. But the true state of affairs in this sector-the so-called Major and Medium (M&M) sector of irrigation-has been systematically and deliberately hidden from the public by India´s Ministry of Water Resources (MWR).
For decades, the Ministry has pursued a one-point programme for the expansion of this sector unmindful of its consistently disappointing record. Year after year, write-ups in the glossy Annual Reports of the Ministry have taken care to refer glowingly to the M&M sector keeping out anything which might even remotely suggest its poor state of health.
But the truth has a way of asserting itself no matter how meticulously suppressed. Aware of the large gap between promise and performance, the authors of the Eighth Plan document (1992) were constrained to observe that "the biggest single malady of this sector right from the First Plan has been its continued tendency to start more and more projects, resulting in wanton proliferation of projects, thin spreading of resources and consequent time and cost overruns."
These remarks, couched as they are in bland officialese, do not convey adequately the extent of the negligence in this sector. For that, one has to refer to the anguished speech made by Prime Minister Rajiv Gandhi in July 1986 while inaugurating the State Irrigation Ministers´ Conference: