This article considers two different programs which attempt to improve water use and management in eastern India. One concerns the Hirukud project, which irrigates 282,000 acres in the Sambalpur district of Orissa; the other is in the Raipur district, just west of Sambalpur in Madhaya Pradesh. Both projects attempt to improve water use and management of existing irrigation, by installing field channels to give farmers better control over the water in each field. The two projects represent the two ends of the cost spectrum. The Raipur project is capital intensive and costly relative to the Sambalpur project which consists of a simple system of village field channels installed at minimum cost. This article reports on the internal rates of return from these projects and highlights the importance of technically trained people and alternative project designs in making projects viable.