Mission Kakatiya: Impact Evaluation of Minor Irrigation Tank Rehabilitation in Telangana

Last registered on June 18, 2023

Pre-Trial

Trial Information

General Information

Title
Mission Kakatiya: Impact Evaluation of Minor Irrigation Tank Rehabilitation in Telangana
RCT ID
AEARCTR-0001821
Initial registration date
December 01, 2016

Initial registration date is when the trial was registered.

It corresponds to when the registration was submitted to the Registry to be reviewed for publication.

First published
December 01, 2016, 1:23 PM EST

First published corresponds to when the trial was first made public on the Registry after being reviewed.

Last updated
June 18, 2023, 11:43 PM EDT

Last updated is the most recent time when changes to the trial's registration were published.

Locations

Region
Region

Primary Investigator

Affiliation
University of Chicago

Other Primary Investigator(s)

PI Affiliation
University of California, Berkeley
PI Affiliation
World Bank
PI Affiliation
University of California, Berkeley

Additional Trial Information

Status
On going
Start date
2016-12-01
End date
2023-08-31
Secondary IDs
Prior work
This trial does not extend or rely on any prior RCTs.
Abstract
Mission Kakatiya is a minor irrigation project under the Department of Irrigation and Command Area Development of the government of the state of Telangana, India, involving civil works to repair and restore water tanks in the state for local agricultural water use. The government is rolling out this project to all tanks in the state – approximately 46,500 in total – over 5 phases spanning 5-7 years. Phases 1 and 2 have already been completed or are underway. Our research entails a two-part impact evaluation of the program. The first component of the evaluation will assess the impact of the phases that are already completed or are currently underway (phases 1 and 2) through a non-experimental methodology involving a sample of 752 tanks. The second component will assess the next phases to be rolled out (phases 4-5) through a randomized encouragement design—that is, actual tanks taken up for restoration under phases 4 or 5 can be subsets of respective lists of randomly selected tanks that the research team will provide for these phases—involving a sample of 92 tanks. Specifically, our research investigates how a water tank restoration effort by a centralized government impacts farm productivity, agricultural output for important crops (paddy, cotton, and maize), water table levels, and agricultural income (revenue net of costs) in the area surrounding a tank. The study will also examine corollary questions, such as identifying the characteristics of tanks that have the largest impact on primary outcomes and determining how water from tanks is distributed among farmers in the area served by the tank (command area).
External Link(s)

Registration Citation

Citation
Gine, Xavier et al. 2023. "Mission Kakatiya: Impact Evaluation of Minor Irrigation Tank Rehabilitation in Telangana." AEA RCT Registry. June 18. https://doi.org/10.1257/rct.1821-5.0
Former Citation
Gine, Xavier et al. 2023. "Mission Kakatiya: Impact Evaluation of Minor Irrigation Tank Rehabilitation in Telangana." AEA RCT Registry. June 18. https://www.socialscienceregistry.org/trials/1821/history/182982
Experimental Details

Interventions

Intervention(s)
Intervention Start Date
2018-03-01
Intervention End Date
2020-08-31

Primary Outcomes

Primary Outcomes (end points)
Process data/extent of restoration; tank irrigated area; total irrigated area in tank village; crop output; crop choice; cropping intensity; crop inputs including silt from tank; water table; aquaculture output (quantity fish produced); household consumption
Primary Outcomes (explanation)

Secondary Outcomes

Secondary Outcomes (end points)
Secondary Outcomes (explanation)

Experimental Design

Experimental Design
Treatment will be assigned at the level of a water tank; that is, the government will assign water tanks to be repaired or restored in a certain phase or not until a later phase. In the first, non-experimental component of the study, the sample is composed of tanks that have already been taken up for repair or restoration. We identified a sample of 752 comparable treatment and control tanks from phases 1 and 2, stratified by Assembly Constituency (the lowest unit where decisions are made with regard to which tanks are to be selected under specific phase), using propensity score matching method. Phase 1 tanks, most of which have been restored as of summer 2016, served as treatment tanks, and phase 2 tanks, most of which have yet to be restored as of early 2017, served as control tanks. The observable variables on which the tanks were matched on included: a) observable tank characteristics such as the command area, catchment area, tank storage capacity, bund length, number of feeder and irrigation channels, b) estimated/contracted cost of rehabilitation and contractor characteristics where available, and c) village (corresponding to the tank location) level characteristics such as population distribution along ethnic lines, political affiliation of village leader (gram panchayat members and President), village level voting share to the party of the local Member of Legislative Assembly (MLA), village level infrastructure, and market connectivity. The data collection for the non-experimental component of the study is complete, and the data analysis is currently underway.

In the second, experimental component of the study, the researchers used a randomized trial approach, where a subset are randomly assigned to be rehabilitated in the phase 4 of rehabilitation in 2018. For this second component, we worked with the Government of Telangana to identify a sample of 92 tanks. From the sample, we randomly assigned 46 tanks to be rehabilitated in phase 4 and have followed up to ensure that most of these are treated. A few of them may not be rehabilitated because there are engineering reasons that could imply rehabilitation not be economically feasible. The rehabilitated tanks from our selected list under phase 4 form our treatment group, which we will compare with the remaining 46 tanks in our sample that serve as control and therefore will not restored during 2018.

A sample of 30 farms per tank were randomly selected among all farmers with plots in the tank’s command area (a term for the area served by a tank used by hydrologists and engineers) – in the event the number of farms were less than 30, then all farms will be sampled. These constitute our subject population. Subjects in the tank command area for the 844 tanks in our study (752 in the non-experimental component, 92 in the experimental component) were informed whether the water tank that services their farms has been taken up for repairs. In the experimental component, we explain that the order of repairs was randomly assigned, whereas in the non-experimental component, we explain that the order was based on a set of government guidelines. In both components, the subjects will be asked to answer survey questions on agriculture production on their plots in the tank command area as well as their plots elsewhere. Additionally, a village level survey will be administered to village leaders/village officials to obtain village economy level data.
Experimental Design Details
Randomization Method
Randomization done in office by a computer
Randomization Unit
Tank
Was the treatment clustered?
Yes

Experiment Characteristics

Sample size: planned number of clusters
844 tanks (752 – Non-experimental; 92 – Experimental)
Sample size: planned number of observations
844 tank-level/village-level observations; 4650 farm-level observations across experimental (2100) and non-experimental components (2550)
Sample size (or number of clusters) by treatment arms
Non-experimental treated group/phase 1 = 266 tanks (+ 5 farms per tank); non experimental comparison group/phase 2 = 323 tanks (+ 5 farms per tank); non experimental unrehabilitated group = 163 tanks (+5 farms per tank)

Experimental treated group = 46 tanks (+ upto 30 farms per tanks); experimental control group = 46 tanks (+ upto 30 farms per tank)
Minimum detectable effect size for main outcomes (accounting for sample design and clustering)
IRB

Institutional Review Boards (IRBs)

IRB Name
University of Chicago
IRB Approval Date
2016-10-28
IRB Approval Number
IRB16-1404
Analysis Plan

Analysis Plan Documents

Mission Kakatiya RCT Pre Analysis Plan

MD5: fe36277aa6186ca658f0b83616b8f03f

SHA1: 2383a7296e2b3aa35b66657e3b347a08326313d9

Uploaded At: March 16, 2019

Post-Trial

Post Trial Information

Study Withdrawal

There is information in this trial unavailable to the public. Use the button below to request access.

Request Information

Intervention

Is the intervention completed?
No
Data Collection Complete
Data Publication

Data Publication

Is public data available?
No

Program Files

Program Files
Reports, Papers & Other Materials

Relevant Paper(s)

Reports & Other Materials