UN Chronicle | FieldWatch - Halve the Proportion of People Without Safe Drinking Water

FieldWatch
Halve the Proportion of People Without Safe Drinking Water
By Vivek Rai, for the Chronicle

Article

Karoli: The dry and arid plains of Eastern Rajasthan are only a few hours' drive from India's capital Delhi. As you ride on the spanking new highway, the green trees start to give way to parched brown ground, and in the heat of the summer you can almost see the earth as it cracks open. When you reach Karoli village in Sawai Madhopur district, it's almost as if you had come upon an oasis.

As that part of India battles the drought, the ground in the desert land is moist, and the villagers are able to grow two crops a year—something unheard of a few years back. Much of this has been the result of work done by the Tarun Bharat Sangh (TBS), a non-governmental organization that has been working in the area for nearly two decades. It is headed by the charismatic Rajendra Singh, winner of the 2001 Ramon Magsaysay Award (named after the former President of the Philippines and awarded to Asians who have contributed to government and community leadership and the arts). TBS has been focusing on the revival of water sources through community development.

Until a few years ago, paucity of water in this region had forced many people to abandon their fields and their lives and migrate to the cities or other areas in search of work, which often meant manual labour. Those who stayed barely eked out a living, with not enough fodder or grain to sell in the marketplaces. That is when TBS stepped in.

Realizing that water is often the main dividing line between poverty and prosperity, TBS focused on getting villagers to revive dying water sources. This was done through the construction of "johads" or check dams near the water sources. The procedure was simple: getting villagers to create mud dams that would capture rainwater, which would then slowly seep into the ground and raise the water table of the area, thereby making it conducive to fertility through most of the year.

Villagers paid for nearly 90 per cent of the cost, thus raising a sense of ownership. Today in Karoli, Saroopa Devi stands in front of her field, glistening with the wet leaves of a rice paddy and speaks of the changes which have taken place. "With no rains, fields had no crops or only dry land rice. Men would migrate for work. We have never seen two crops. We used to do daily labour and feed ourselves. But now, with our water tank, we have two crops. And all the men have come back."

Saroopa Devi and women like her have in many ways been the main beneficiaries of these community projects. Having to procure fodder, fuelwood and water meant as many as 18 hours of work a day, with very little time left for anything else. At least now the ready availability of water has given them time to take better care of their children.

But having worked hard at creating their own resources, these villagers also have to deal with the bureaucracy. Take the case of Hamirpur village, in Rajasthan, where villagers managed to restore water in a dried-up river. According to Rudha Mal, a resident: "When this river was dry, the Government didn't bother about us. But once there was water, they gave out fishing contracts. We were against this. The fish is ours, the water is ours rightfully. We won't allow fishing. They said they would send us to jail. We said do what you want but we won't give in. We sat on satyagraha for six months on this bund. We fought hard and the Government finally had to stop giving out fishing contracts."

Decisions like unilaterally giving out fishing contracts, while doubtless legal, appear contradictory to the drive to empower communities. But the issue is also about indigenous versus "modern" technology. The State Government has often questioned the safety of these simple dams, as in the case of Lava Ka Bas region, where a mud dam was created to irrigate over ten surrounding villages. The chief irrigation officer issued a notice of demolition despite claims by TBS and the villagers that the rocks and mud which border the dam were strong enough to withhold the water.

Kallu and Dharma, two villagers from Lava Ka Bas, say: "Villagers understand this, even if the Government engineers don't. They think villagers are fools but we aren't, because we've always worked with mud and know how to use it." Eventually, an independent committee was set up, comprising engineers, bureaucrats and scientists, who concluded that the mud dam was secure.

The people had won this round!

But there remains a tug of war between the indigenous knowledge and expertise of the people and the technology of the State. TBS workers say that they have constructed as many as 4,000 check dams in the last two decades, which have proven to be both structurally and financially viable to their communities—this at a time when Indians, like the rest of the world, are debating the merits of big dams! Apart from the human-cost factor—the dislocation of thousands of people and the submergence of huge tracts of forests—an average big dam costs much more than the smaller, localized and environmentally more friendly check dams which rarely go higher than $6,000.

Three years ago, realizing the potential of the work being done by TBS, the United Nations Development Programme stepped in to fund the organization's activities, and thereby spread its knowledge to larger areas within Rajasthan and beyond. Ironically, the UNDP funding is remitted through the very government which had discouraged the villagers initially but which may now do more to prevent stand-offs like the ones in Hamirpur and Lava Ka Bas.

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