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NETWORKING |
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| Carrying a torch to dark zones |
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INITIATIVE |
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| Helping themselves Bank loans to harvest water Where there's a will,there's a way |
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POLICY |
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| Watershed development: what next |
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TECHNOLOGY |
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| Creating their own water world Simple yet effective |
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TRADITION |
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| The dharma of water |
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FUNDING AGENCY |
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| Netherlands Development Cooperation Programme |
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CAMPAIGN |
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| Concern for common resources Schools efforts We beg to differ |
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DROUGHT |
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| A stark reality |
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Vol. 2
No.
6
December 2000
Watershed development: what next
Watershed development is adopted to protect the livelihood of people inhabiting fragile
ecosystems and experiencing soil erosion and moisture stress.
For watershed programme to be sustainable , the following issues need to be addressed.
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Watershed stores the excess water and releases it when required |
Ironically, people’s participation and decentralisation of programme administration, which accounts for the success achieved so far, is highly inadequate for the sustainance of the programme. This is especially true in areas where it has been implemented in haste to fulfill the targets for completion of works without waiting for the required institution-building and leadership formation at the grassroots level. Even with the best intentions, it requires quite some time for bureaucracy to undergo the necessary motivational and attitudinal transformation before plunging wholeheartedly with the responsibility of an executing authority. Owing to mutually conflicting interests of different rural societies, institution building is a time consuming and painstaking task. Capacity building through training
Awareness building, imparting resource literacy and development of technical skills are required for capacity building. Reorienting motivation and the attitude of officials at all levels is also needed for empowering the people through decentralisation. Those who need training themselves are not best suited to oversee these training programmes. Though a number of measures have been taken to assure training, experience shows the need for
(a) Training of the bureaucrats and politicians,
(b) improving the content and quality of the training; and,
(c) intensifying training by incorporting the changing requirements in the field.
Under the new government guidelines as many as 10,000 watershed projects under the Drought Prone Areas Programme (DPAP) have been launched. Five or six years of implementation is a long enough period to justify an evaluation of a nationwide project like this. Unfortunately, no systematic effort has been initiated so far for undertaking evaluation. Despite wide coverage of the programme launched five years ago, there is virtually no institutional mechanism put in place at the national level for evaluation. It is of utmost importance to involve reputed institutions in the country for upgrading the quality of evaluation. Integration with agriculture development programmes
Watershed work is being integrated with joint forest management following a decision by the ministry of rural areas and employment with the concurrence of ministry of environment and forests. However, at the moment there is little presence of agriculture department in the DPAP watersheds by way of promoting locally relevant research and extending suitable technologies, inputs and other necessary support to farmers. The convergence of services from the agricultural department would contribute to raising the productivity of land and water resources conserved and augmented through watershed development and thus induce farmers to sustain their efforts towards watershed development in these areas. Strategy for rainfed farming
The convergence mentioned above would, however, not be sufficient for optimising the benefits from the soil. A major shift in the existing policy for dryland farming is required. In dryland areas, decisions have to be preceded by community effort, which is a time-consuming task. Besides, dryland areas have more agro-climatic diversity than the traditional irrigated areas. These areas require more in-depth research.
The green revolution was characterised by land-saving but water-using technologies whereas dryland areas need water-saving technologies. In the absence of such technologies the farmers in these areas opt for water-intensive crops. These give rise to conflicts on water and scarcity of drinking water. Moreover, crops under dryland areas face yield as well as price uncertainty, in addition to being less remunerative, as price support and procurement operations are highly inadequate in these areas. Subsidised or free electricity has led to overexploitation of scarce groundwater resources.
However, given the necessary shift in the policy framework with respect of agricultural research, extension and supply of inputs like seeds, infrastructure development and price and credit policies, dryland areas hold considerable promise for the development of agriculture. Thus, given a wider strategy for extending green revolution to the dryland areas through watershed programme, it could turn into a truly spontaneous and demand driven movement.
Source:
C. H. Hanumantha Rao,
in Economic and Political Weekly,
November 4-10, 2000, Volume XXXV No. 45.