Skip to main content

How community-based local solutions can significantly improve water management, conservation

By Bharat Dogra 
Water scarcity for many months in a year is becoming a significant problem in many rural communities of the world. In many areas it has become a survival issue and several communities are forced to abandon their habitations for a considerable time of the year mainly because of water scarcity. Many others are able to maintain their settlement only if the timely arrival of water tankers can be ensured. In other places communities are having to struggle very hard to quench the thirst of their farm, dairy and other animals. In a larger number of communities people are saying loud and clear that water has emerged as their biggest constraint as many other development initiatives cannot progress or even start due to water shortage.
This situation has been reached in many parts of the world not due to any absence of mega water, dam and canal projects but instead this water scarcity is existing despite the leading emphasis having been placed on these, with much lesser resources being set aside for local solutions with special emphasis on water conservation. Mega projects create a false illusion of achievement as a lot of water can be seen to be collected in one reservoir and its canals, but the disruption caused over a wider area of the river is not so visible but nevertheless quite significant. At the same time, such expensive projects take away such a huge part of the water budget that very little may be saved for the thousands of small projects that rural communities need in the region for conserving rainwater as well as for taking forward other important aspects of proper water management.
If the right conclusions are drawn from the experience of many regions, the best policy for any rural community is to conserve as much rainwater as possible using methods best suited to local conditions, and then using water in disciplined ways so that the actual use is not more than what is locally available. This is the most sustainable path to water security. On the other hand transferring water over vast areas can be very expensive and wasteful, can lead to avoidable conflicts and in addition can be non-sustainable in many ways. It is like trying to meet your most basic need in not just expensive but also uncertain and precarious ways.
What are the requirements for ensuring that water needs are met in sustainable and self-reliant ways at the level of rural communities, a situation that can be called jal-swaraj for any village or cluster of villages?
Firstly, of course, local communities should be strengthened so that they can effectively take decisions regarding what is the best way of ensuring water security and self-reliance at the local level. They must be able to access a reasonable budget for this. Within the community the voice of weaker sections and of women must get adequate attention. There should be a spirit of voluntarism to take up community work or contribute to it. There should be an understanding of traditional wisdom relating to the best methods of conserving rainwater and other aspects of water-management and various water sources. Of course new ideas for taking this forward in even better ways are always welcome; it is only ecosystem disrupting projects and schemes that should be avoided. There should be community discipline regarding avoiding excessive and wasteful use of water, and there should be community strength for preventing outsiders from misusing water and harming basic water sources like rivers and ponds.
Many rural communities are not in this position as rivers and sometimes even tanks are being harmed by outside forces against whom they find themselves to be quite powerless at present. The harm done by sand mining to many rivers has been massive, and in addition there are serious pollution issues. What is more, the more powerful persons tend sometimes to overuse scarce water in highly excessive and wasteful ways beyond the local carrying capacity, thereby reducing the access that more ordinary people and weaker sections can have to water, and harming sustainability prospects as well.
On the other hand if we have communities based on justice and equality and they are given the task of managing water on the basis of sustainability then the basic requirement of sustainable and justice/equality based management of water in rural areas would be achieved.
In fact if any wider region is mainly inhabited by such communities, then the water plans and the budgets devoted to them are likely to truly reflect the needs of these people and their communities. In such a situation the objectives of conserving rainwater as well as making careful, non-wasteful use of it in justice-based would be realized and people as well as animals would be able to meet their water needs without any resort to water transfers across vast areas, at the same time raising the water –table and achieving better adaptation to climate change.
Several such initiatives for moving in the direction of jal swaraj are taking place in various parts of the country to varying extent, and as there are several problems the progress at times cannot go beyond a certain stage in keeping with the constraints of the existing systems. Nevertheless whatever progress has been achieved by these efforts should be appreciated and further efforts in the same direction should be encouraged. Keeping alive the thinking of jal swaraj within the broad thinking and development philosophy of Mahatma Gandhi, is itself an important task as this can keep alive the hope of saving us from many wasteful and disruptive projects, while at the same time bringing us closer to careful use of existing resources for genuinely helpful and sustainable efforts.
Among those efforts which have received much appreciation in recent years there is the well-known initiative of jal sahelis or women water volunteers in rural areas of Bundelkhand region who have provided a fine example of community participation for improving water conservation and management. They have been involved among other things in restoration of many ponds and even rejuvenation of some small rivers. A jal saheli like Imarti Bai mobilized fellow women to repair a well in a rocky area to find better water supply for several dalit households, while a student Babita Rajput mobilized students and other women to dig a canal from a mountainous area in even more difficult conditions. Following such inspiring work this effort has been steadily growing and early this year there was a further big boost with a 300 km foot march in which nearly 300 jal sahelis participated. This has raised the collective strength of the water volunteers to a point where they can start going beyond merely village-level initiatives to ask for policy changes that would be more supportive of community-based water initiatives. Moving in this direction, Parmarth voluntary organization, which started this important initiative, with the help of jal sahelis has prepared a charter of demands and jal sahelis and Parmarth members have been meeting various authorities and decision takers so that several demands which emerged in the course of the yatra or the foot-march can be taken further. These include preparing a working plan for the restoration of traditional water sources particularly ponds/tanks, setting up a center for restoring these tanks and a center for jal sahelis, making the implementation of Atal groundwater scheme more participative and creating more support for community participation in the planning for water and soil conservation works. These demands include giving priority to the rejuvenation, protection and cleaning of several small rivers. Planting of trees, particularly in the catchment areas of rivers and other water sources and raising of more community nutrition gardens has also been demanded. 
At several points in the yatra the participants along with local villagers took pledges to work for the protection of rivers, tanks and other water sources they encountered on their way and which were found to be suffering from serious problems and threats. As the participants carried a kalash or traditional water carrying utensil with drops of water from all these sources all along the yatra a deep emotional bond of protection was created towards these water sources. As details of what needs to be done to protect these water sources have been collected in the course of the march there is now a big opportunity for speeding up this work and also doing it in better ways, as contacts with a lot of local people devoted to taking up such work have also been established. The government should also utilize the opportunities that have been created by this yatra and related efforts for speeding up protective work relating to these water sources. The yatra imparted a special spiritual and emotional strength to such initiatives with its various pledges and kalash and other ceremonies, and one hopes that this movement of strength and raised awareness and inspiration can be seized upon to rapidly take forward many protective and conservation efforts. The yatra has also pointed out where the Jal Jeevan Mission is lagging behind and this information can also be utilized to take up remedial steps with a sense of urgency.
---
The writer is Honorary Convener, Campaign to Save Earth Now. His recent books include Protecting Earth for Children, Planet in Peril, Man over Machine, and A Day in 2071

Comments

TRENDING

A comrade in culture and controversy: Yao Wenyuan’s revolutionary legacy

By Harsh Thakor*  This year marks two important anniversaries in Chinese revolutionary history—the 20th death anniversary of Yao Wenyuan, and the 50th anniversary of his seminal essay "On the Social Basis of the Lin Biao Anti-Party Clique". These milestones invite reflection on the man whose pen ignited the first sparks of the Great Proletarian Cultural Revolution and whose sharp ideological interventions left an indelible imprint on the political and cultural landscape of socialist China.

What's behind Donald Trump's 'narco-state' accusation against Venezuela

By Manolo De Los Santos  The US government has revived its campaign to label Venezuela a "narco-state", accusing its top leadership of drug trafficking and slapping hefty bounties on their heads for capture. This campaign, which only momentarily took a backseat, is a strategic fabrication, not a factual assessment. This accusation, particularly amplified under the Trump Administration, is a calculated smokescreen to justify a long-standing agenda: the overthrow of the Venezuelan government and the seizure of its vast oil and mineral resources. A closer examination of the facts reveals a country that has actively fought drug trafficking on its own terms and a US government with a clear and consistent history of destabilizing independent countries in Latin America.

1857 War of Independence... when Hindu-Muslim separatism, hatred wasn't an issue

"The Sepoy Revolt at Meerut", Illustrated London News, 1857  By Shamsul Islam* Large sections of Hindus, Muslims and Sikhs unitedly challenged the greatest imperialist power, Britain, during India’s First War of Independence which began on May 10, 1857; the day being Sunday. This extraordinary unity, naturally, unnerved the firangees and made them realize that if their rule was to continue in India, it could happen only when Hindus and Muslims, the largest two religious communities were divided on communal lines.

New RTI draft rules inspired by citizen-unfriendly, overtly bureaucratic approach

By Venkatesh Nayak* The Department of Personnel and Training , Government of India has invited comments on a new set of Draft Rules (available in English only) to implement The Right to Information Act, 2005 . The RTI Rules were last amended in 2012 after a long period of consultation with various stakeholders. The Government’s move to put the draft RTI Rules out for people’s comments and suggestions for change is a welcome continuation of the tradition of public consultation. Positive aspects of the Draft RTI Rules While 60-65% of the Draft RTI Rules repeat the content of the 2012 RTI Rules, some new aspects deserve appreciation as they clarify the manner of implementation of key provisions of the RTI Act. These are: Provisions for dealing with non-compliance of the orders and directives of the Central Information Commission (CIC) by public authorities- this was missing in the 2012 RTI Rules. Non-compliance is increasingly becoming a major problem- two of my non-compliance cases are...

Two more "aadhaar-linked" Jharkhand deaths: 17 die of starvation since Sept 2017

Kaleshwar's sons Santosh and Mantosh Counterview Desk A fact-finding team of the Right to Feed Campaign, pointing towards the death of two more persons due to starvation in Jharkhand, has said that this has happened because of the absence of aadhaar, leading to “persistent lack of food at home and unavailability of any means of earning.” It has disputed the state government claims that these deaths are due to reasons other than starvation, adding, the authorities have “done nothing” to reduce the alarming state of food insecurity in the state.

Epic war against caste system is constitutional responsibility of elected government

Edited by well-known Gujarat Dalit rights leader Martin Macwan, the book, “Bhed-Bharat: An Account of Injustice and Atrocities on Dalits and Adivasis (2014-18)” (available in English and Gujarati*) is a selection of news articles on Dalits and Adivasis (2014-2018) published by Dalit Shakti Prakashan, Ahmedabad. Preface to the book, in which Macwan seeks to answer key questions on why the book is needed today: *** The thought of compiling a book on atrocities on Dalits and thus present an overall Indian picture had occurred to me a long time ago. Absence of such a comprehensive picture is a major reason for a weak social and political consciousness among Dalits as well as non-Dalits. But gradually the idea took a different form. I found that lay readers don’t understand numbers and don’t like to read well-researched articles. The best way to reach out to them was storytelling. As I started writing in Gujarati and sharing the idea of the book with my friends, it occurred to me that while...

N-power plant at Mithi Virdi: CRZ nod is arbitrary, without jurisdiction

By Krishnakant* A case-appeal has been filed against the order of the Ministry of Environment, Forest and Climate Change (MoEF&CC) and others granting CRZ clearance for establishment of intake and outfall facility for proposed 6000 MWe Nuclear Power Plant at Mithi Virdi, District Bhavnagar, Gujarat by Nuclear Power Corporation of India Limited (NPCIL) vide order in F 11-23 /2014-IA- III dated March 3, 2015. The case-appeal in the National Green Tribunal at Western Bench at Pune is filed by Shaktisinh Gohil, Sarpanch of Jasapara; Hajabhai Dihora of Mithi Virdi; Jagrutiben Gohil of Jasapara; Krishnakant and Rohit Prajapati activist of the Paryavaran Suraksha Samiti. The National Green Tribunal (NGT) has issued a notice to the MoEF&CC, Gujarat Pollution Control Board, Gujarat Coastal Zone Management Authority, Atomic Energy Regulatory Board and Nuclear Power Corporation of India Limited (NPCIL) and case is kept for hearing on August 20, 2015. Appeal No. 23 of 2015 (WZ) is filed, a...

Ground reality: Israel would a remain Jewish state, attempt to overthrow it will be futile

By NS Venkataraman*  Now that truce has been arrived at between Israel and Hamas for a period of four days and with release of a few hostages from both sides, there is hope that truce would be further extended and the intensity of war would become significantly less. This likely “truce period” gives an opportunity for the sworn supporters and bitter opponents of Hamas as well as Israel and the observers around the world to introspect on the happenings and whether this war could have been avoided. There is prolonged debate for the last several decades as to whom the present region that has been provided to Jews after the World War II belong. View of some people is that Jews have been occupants earlier and therefore, the region should belong to Jews only. However, Christians and those belonging to Islam have also lived in this regions for long period. While Christians make no claim, the dispute is between Jews and those who claim themselves to be Palestinians. In any case...

Fate of Yamuna floodplain still hangs in "balance" despite National Green Tribunal rap on Sri Sri event

By Ashok Shrimali* While the National Green Tribunal (NGT) on Thursday reportedly pulled up the Delhi Development Authority (DDA) for granting permission to hold spiritual guru Sri Sri Ravi Shankar's World Culture Festival on the banks of Yamuna, the chief petitioners against the high-profile event Yamuna Jiye Abhiyan has declared, the “fate of the floodplain still hangs in balance.”