IMPLEMENTATION OF IRRIGATION MANAGEMENT TRANSFER IN IRAN: A PROPOSED FRAMEWORK

Iran is facing a serious water scarcity and the government is making serious efforts to adopt technical and institutional measures to meet the challenge. One of the key strategies being persuaded is the devolution of management responsibility to users. Thus Irrigation Management Transfer (IMT) has been adopted as a key strategy to improve the operation and maintenance, reduce losses and enhance sustainability of irrigation infrastructure. However, IMT efforts are at an inception stage and are largely happening in areas where infrastructure is under rehabilitation. The key objective of this paper is to review the on-going IMT efforts in the two provinces of Iran, as well as the lessons from the neighboring countries, and propose a viable framework for implementing IMT. To get the first hand information of the IMT activities in Iran, field visits were carried out in the provinces of Qazvin and Karmanshah where two big pilot projects are being carried out. At the end, paper proposes a framework for the implementation of Irrigation Management Transfer in Iran.