•
With the transfer of the irrigation districts, conveyance efficiency increased due to better water management by WUOs and users.
In general, users were satisfied with having taken over the responsibilities for operation, maintenance and administration of the hydraulic infrastructure. Users claimed that irrigation services had improved, structures were kept better even though they needed rehabilitation, and there was interest in improving on-farm irrigation systems and technological levels of water distribution.
Training and technical
assistance to users provided by the NWC and IMTA was highly appreciated. There was a general reduction in O&M costs with the transfer due to better use of equipment and machinery and personnel reduction of more than 50%. Since the NWC staff reduction was very important, some employees were granted early retirement and others were relocated. It is still too soon to make a definite evaluation of the program, but it is recognized that there are still many difficulties that have to be overcome in the future. Some of these difficulties are listed: •
The new institutional framework established in 1995 made NWC a semi-independent agency of the new Ministry of the Environment, Natural Resources and Fisheries thus coordination of O&M of IDs are going to have new difficulties.
•
The decentralization to state Government may bring special problems to maintain a high level of technical personnel in charge of the program.
•
Water fees have to be updated, to take into account inflation and other improvement programs.
•
Transparency and accountability should be kept in the management of the WUOs.
•
A special fund should be designed to provide resources during droughts and extremely rainy periods, when the distributed volume varies considerably.
•
A fund has to be provided for the amortization and replacement of equipment and machinery.
The experience during the last decade, working closely with users and WUOs, has been the basis of developing other programs that have benefited from the transfer process. The new partnership of users and Government has been a success due, in large part, to the enthusiasm of users and hard work of the NWC personnel. In 2001 the same team from El Colegio de Postgraduados carried out a follow up study of Second Generation Problems in the IDs. The found the following :
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