Willingness to Pay for improvements in Irrigation Water: Malaprabha Basin, Karnataka, India Durba Biswas* Abstract The agriculture secto1; being the largest user of water, needs to use scarce water efficiently; this requires economic valuation of the '11on- marketed' irrigation wata Any water allocation decision based on the curre11t methods of valuation which depe11d mainly on the cost of water supply becomes ineffective in achieving the objective of efficient and sustainable use of water in the long run. As an attempt to estimate the true opportunity cost of water use, a contingent valuation (CV) study was conducted to estimate the economic value of irrigation water i11 the canal systems of Malaprabha Basin in Karnataka. The results suggest that the farmers were willing to pay much higher than the current water rates if the reliable irrigation water is assured. The results also imply that the CV method can be used effectively to elicit eco11omic value of irrigation water especially in the developing country context. Water in agriculture: an economics perspective India is described largely as an agrarian economy with over 60 percent of people involved in agriculture and allied activities. According to the Ministry of Agriculture, the share of agriculture in Gross Domestic Product (GDP) has fallen from 34.72 per cent in 1980-81 to 24.85 per cent in 1999; however, its share in GDP in absolute terms is increasing constantly. Increased agricultural output and employment in the post-green revolution era can be attributed to the role played by enhanced irrigation as an intermediate good ' Research Scholar, Institute for Social and Economic Change, Bangalore 560072, durba_biswas@yahoo.co. in, durba@isec.ac. in Review of Development and Change, Vol. XIII, No.2, July-December 2008, pp. 181-20 I