Analysis of the privatization of irrigation projects in view point of legislation ‎and policy

Since the 1990 s, a number of countries adopted the transfer policies or irrigation management ‎transfer (IMT), and in some cases, the incentive to reform water laws was provided (Bruns et al., ‎‎2005). Making of the investment decisions and water allocation by local and private organizations ‎requires that the‏ ‏water users‏ ‏have confidence in the quantity and time they receive water and this ‎requires the existence of legal transparency. Therefore, water laws should provide a full and ‎indispensable set of rights for use of water (Bayat et al., 2016). In this study, by focusing on the ‎privatization of agricultural water, relevant law clauses were extracted during different periods, and ‎the effectiveness of these rules on management of water resources was analyzed‏.‏

In this study, the purpose of “law” is all ratification of parliament, official codes, and ‎administrative regulations. Since land containing groundwater resources are usually governed by ‎private management, the focus is on the rules associated with irrigation networks with surface water ‎resources. To implement the study all documents related to water laws, approved by various ‎organizations of the country, included the resolutions and bills of the Islamic Parliament of Iran, ‎national development plans, the resolutions of the Supreme Council for Water, the efforts of the ‎relevant Ministries, and published procedures and executive regulations. Then the material related to ‎the issue of privatizing and reducing the government’s leadership and authority, or common and ‎applicable laws that lacked relevance to privatization issues were extracted from them and, besides ‎international documents in this regard, were analyzed in a descriptive way‏.‏

Until 1929, water governance issues were solved by the common rule of society in the ownership ‎of wells and qanats. Then, by compiling civil code, water governance was enforced using this law. In ‎‎1944, with the approval of the law allowing the establishment of the irrigation agency, the ‎individual aspect of irrigation was limited to traditional water rights and the government supervised ‎all irrigation affairs. In this period, for the first time, public and private institutions were allowed to ‎build and invest in irrigation networks. By approving the establishment of companies to exploit ‎lands downstream of the dams, the exploitation of command area of irrigation networks was given to ‎natural persons and non-governmental individuals. After the Islamic revolution, according to the ‎constitution and the approval of the cabinet of ministers, the government was obliged to dispose of ‎its shares in the operation of irrigation networks by maintaining state ownership of the ‎infrastructure. Nevertheless, the devolution of these private companies only occurred in the ‎ownership of the shares and these companies are still dominated by the government in management, ‎structure and the way of referral. The development plans of the country and the approvals of the ‎supreme council of water have stressed the acceleration of the privatization process and the ‎reduction of government incumbency in water projects, but financial support and the executive ‎program have not been taken into account to meet their goals. The set of criteria for operation and ‎maintenance of irrigation networks was notified to the ministry of power in 2005. However, except ‎for identifying the competence of companies, other parts of it could not be implemented, so it is ‎needed to update these instructions. In the study of international experiences of water reform with ‎the approach of privatization in developed (United States and France) and developing countries ‎‎(Chile, Mexico, Turkey and India), some cases such as clear and transparent water rights with ‎guarantee the implementation of the rules, financial independence of water custodian, appropriate ‎water pricing, establishing a legal framework for privatization process and conducting regular ‎assessments to evaluate the results of transfer of management is considered as the most important ‎measures in water privatization.‎

‏‌‏Conclusions

By changing the policy of government from centralization to the participation of the private ‎sector and the stakeholders, the current laws in the field of water resources need to be reviewed. Due ‎to the importance of the subject, in this research, we proceed to aggregation rules and procedures ‎related to this discussion and review the consequences of implementing laws and policies of ‎privatization in irrigation networks. The results showed that although there are laws and regulations ‎to attract private sector capital, the time of implementation of water plans and low investment ‎profits has prevented the private sector investment in this sector. The generality of laws, disregard ‎for restrictions, climatic conditions and political changes in the country (such as change of ‎government), has made the implementation of water development programs less effective. In ‎addition, attracting the full political support at high levels of management and legislation of the ‎country, and the use of simple legal framework with accordance of the capacity of water users, were ‎the main factors in success of pioneer countries in water privatization.‎