drought: try capturing the rain

8/9/2019 DROUGHT: TRY CAPTURING THE RAIN

1/16

Dear Membe rs of Parliamen t and State Legislatur es,

Several parts of the countr y are witnessing a serious

drought . The result is acute drinking water

shortages in Gujarat, Rajasthan, western Madhya

Pradesh , Orissa and Andh ra Prad esh. Accord ing to

newspaper rep orts, several towns in Saurashtra are

getting an extremely irregular supply of water

(see table 1: Drinking water availability in Gujarat

towns in April 2000). Most of the dams and res er-

voirs in the region h ave dried up . The government is

trying to deal with t he p roblem by p roviding water

throu gh tankers and by deep ening existing borewells.

The Central government has promised to r un water

trains.But is all this inevitable? That we have to

do this every time the rainfall is less than no rma l?

We do nt th ink so and we wish to b rief you on what

can be done to solve this prob lem almost permanently

unless, of course, th ere is a series of consecutive

droughts for several years . The change we are

advoc ating will come, we ar e afraid to say, only if our

poli t ical leaders are prepared to promote a new

appr oach to water management in this country.

During one of the meetings of the World WaterCommission, which sub mitted its rep ort in th e Hague

in April 2000 to a b evy of water minister s, a mem ber

had strongly emphasized the need for educatingpoliticians about the importance of water. I, however,

found th at argument incorrect b ecause I have rarely

met a politician, espe cially in India, who d oes not

emph asize the importan ce of water. But what I have

indeed found is that h ardly any of them know how to

solve the water problem.

Not su rp risingly, few government initiatives have been

able to deliver the goods as th e current unp recedente d

drought has s hown in such starkness. The por tents of

this so-called once-in-a-century drought had become

clear as far back as Septemb er 1999 when national

elections were being held a nd Shri L K Advani had to

face slogans like Pehle Paani Phir Advani in

Saurash tra . As far back as Decem ber, many villagers in

north Gujarat had begun to leave home because of

water shorta ge. Once the monsoon s eason was over,

the government co uld not have don e anything to solve

the water prob lem except to p rovide some succour in

terms of drought relief works, emergency water su pply

throu gh tankers, and digging deepe r b orewells for

some res idual water in the bowels of the eart h.

But this is not enough. Many wil l term what is

happening in Gujarat and Rajasthan a natural disa ster . This is rea lly far from t he trut h. It is

DROUGHT?TRY CAPTURING THE RAIN

By Anil Agarw a l

It is possible to banish drought completely and in ten years maximum

if the government puts its mind to it.

P01


2/16

truly a huma n-ma de or rat her a government-

made disaster. Over the last one hundred years or

so, the world and India, too, have seen two major

shifts in water management. One is that individualsand commun ities h ave stea dily given over th eir role

almost completely to the state even though more than

150 years ago no government anywhere in the world

provided water . The second is that the simple

technology of using rainwater has declined and in its

place exploitation of rivers and groundwater through

dams and tubewells has become the key source of

water. As water in rivers and aquifers is only a small

por tion of the t otal rainwater, ther e is an inevitable

and growing and, in many cases, unbe arable stress on

water from rivers and groundwater.

Dependence on the state has also meant that costs of

water sup ply are high; with c ost r ecovery being poor

the financial sustainability of water schemes has

run aground; and, repairs and maintenance is

abysmal. With people having no interest in using

water carefully, the sustainability of water resources

has itself beco me a ques tion mark pro blems we

see acros s the b oard to day. As a result , there are

serious p roblems with government drinking water

sup ply scheme s. Despite all the government efforts ,

the numbe r of prob lem villages does not s eem to go

down. As N C Saxena, former rural development

secretary puts it , In our mathematics, 200,000

pr oblem villages minus 200,000 pro blem villages is

still 200,000 problem villages ( see graph 1:

UNENDING EXERCISE: Record of government rural

drinking water supply sche mes).

Given the fact that India is one of the most

w ell-endow ed na tions in the world in terms of aver-

age annual rainfall , there is no reason why i t

should suffer from d rought. This year o r any o ther

year. The most important lesson that our decision-

makers shou ld learn from the current crisis is how

to drought-proo f the nation in the yea rs to come a ta sk that can ea sily be accomplished in less than

a decad e if the country puts its mind to it.

The government has indeed invested heavily

on water resources development. But these

programmes have focussed mainly on:

(a) Large-scale irrigation development for increasing

Green Revolution-style agricultural pr odu ction;

and,

(b) Drinking water sup ply programmes.

Yet a large part of the country remains drought-

prone. This is becaus e no specific effort has been

made to drought-proof rainfed areas which suffer

from high rainfall variability from year to year

and seas on to seas on. Moreover, the government has

encouraged a massive intervention into th e countr ys

hydrological cycle but it has done precious little to

sus tain the integrity of the h ydrological syst em. A

fine example of the d isintegration of the co untr ys

hydrological system is what we are doing to our

groundwater . The country has been constantly

encouraging exploitation of groundwater but has

done little to rec har ge it . As a res ult, ground water

tab les are falling all over th e coun try. Cons idering the

fact th at over 90 per ce nt of rural Indians de pend on

groundwater to get th eir drinking water, the dec line

poses a serious prob lem which becomes an emer-

gency in a year when th e rains are low as in th is year.

The poor , of course, who depe nd o n du g wells, which

dry off first, as comp ared to tu bewells or bore wells,

are the first to suffer.

2

Table 1 : Drinking w ater a vailability in Gujarat tow ns in April 20 00

Place Availability of drinking water

Rajkot (1) 30 minutes every alternate day

Jamnagar, Jasdan and Amreli (1) 20 minutes once in three days

Jodiya town, Jamnagar district (2) 20 minutes in 12 days

Dhrol town, Jamnagar district (2) Half the population gets water once in eight days

Sources: 1) Janyala Sreenivas 2000, Forget the Sensex for a second, look what else is going down, Indian Express, New Delhi, April 19, p.1

2) Janyala Sreenivas 2000, Once a fortnight, they get a few drops and that too for 20 minutes, Indian Express, New Delhi, Apri l 21, p.1

Governments have paid little attention to efforts needed to

drought-proof the country

DROUGHT? TRY CAPTURING THE RAIN


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3

1. Communities and rain

Community-based rainwater harvesting the

paradigm of the past has in it as much strength

today as it ever did before. A survey conducted by the

Centre for Science and Environment (CSE) of

several villages facing drought in Gujarat and

western Madhya Pradesh last December Ghelhar

Chot i in Jhabu a d istrict, Thunt hi-Kankasiya in Dahod

dist rict, Raj-Sama dh iyala and Mand likpur in Rajkot

district, and Gand higram in Kachc hh district found

that a ll tho se villages which had u nde rtaken rainwater

harvesting and/or watershed development in earlier

years had no dr inking water problem whatsoever and

even had some water t o irrigate their crops. On the

other hand, neighbouring villages were desperate for

water and p lanning to migrate when the real summer

hit them. This survey revealed th at rainwater harvest-

ing can meet even th e acid test of a bad d rought.

In late March, we got further confirmation of our con-

viction. Going with president K R Narayanan in a heli-

copter to the Arvari watershed who was scheduled to

give the Down to Earth-Josep h C John Award to village

Bhao nta-Kolyala in late March , we could s ee n oth ing

but bar ren fields all the way from Delhi to Alwar. This

CENTRE FOR SCIENCE AND ENVIRONM ENT

Year of Number of Problem Number of villages covered till Number of villages not covered

Survey Villages identified the next survey before the next survey

1972 150,000 94,000 56,000

1980 231,000 192,000 39,000

1985 161,722 161,652 70

1994 140,975 110,371 30,604

1997 61,747

Source: N C Saxena, Ministry of Rural Development, Government of India

Graph 1: UNENDING EXERCISE: Record of government rura l drinking w ater supply schemes

The graph shows that even though a large number of villages are covered between two surveys the number of problem villages

keeps growing. For instance, in 1980, there should not have been more than 56,000 problem villages, but there were 231,000.Obviously, the money pumped in and the methods used were unsustainable. As N C Saxena, former rural development secretary,

puts it, In our mathematics, 200,000 problem villages minus 200,000 problem villages is still 200,000 problem villages.

150,000

56,000

231,000

39,000

161,722

70

140,975

30,604

61,747

0

50,000

100,000

150,000

200,000

250,000

Year of survey of problem villages

Numbero

fproblemv

illagesidentified/

Numberofvillagesremaining

or

waitingtobecovered

Number of Problem villages identified Number of villages wait ing t o be covered

94,000

192,0

00

161,6

52

110,371

Number of villages covered during the specified survey period

1972 1980 1985 1994 1997

Community-based rainwater harvesting has the potential to

drought-proof the entire country


4/16

4

area is su ffering from a secon d con secutive drought-

year. But suddenly we came across green and golden

fields and realised th at we had rea ched t he oas is of the

Arvari watershed where s everal villages have o ver the

last 5-10 years built h undr eds of rainwater harvest ing

structures. Nobody needed to emph asize the impor-

tance o f rainwater harves ting any more. The pre sident

saw a more or less dead Arvari river, unable to with-

stand the b urden of two years drou ght, but wells were

still full of water and, therefore, fields were rich and

prod uctive and villagers re asonab ly hap py.

2. Getting priorities right: Poten tial of rainwate rharvesting

What makes ra inwa te r harves t ing such a

powerful technology? Just the simple r ichness of

rainwater availability tha t few of us r ealise becau se of

the speed with which water, the worlds mo st fluid

subs tance, disappears . Imagine you had a h ectare of

land in Barmer, one of Indias driest places, and you

received 100 mm of water in the year, common even

for this area. That means t hat you received as much

as one million litres of water enough to meet

drinking and cooking water needs of 182 people at aliber al 15 litres pe r da y. Even if you are n ot ab le to

capture al l that water this would depend on the

natu re of rainfall events and type o f run off sur face,

among other factors you could still , even with

rudimentary technology, capture at least half a

million litres a year .

It is, in fact, only with this rudimentary technology

that people came to inhabit the Thar desert and have

made i t the most densely populated desert in the

world. And assuming you could c apture the 2000 mm

annua l rainfall that is commo n in east ern India, you

would need o nly 500 square me tre of land (a 21 metre

by 21 metre p lot) to ca ptu re on e million litre s. It is

also interest ing to note that r ural population density

follows intensity of annual rainfall. Barmer, for

instance, has less rainfall but few peop le and a lot of

land available per person whereas 24-Parganas in

West Bengal has much more rain but more p eople

and less land available per p erson.

Even in th e villages suffering from dro ught t his year ,

it is not as if the re was no r ain. In man y areas like

Andhra Pradesh, Orissa and western Madhya

Pradesh the rainfall levels, though lower than normal,

were still more t han 500 mm, which is an enor mous

amount of rainfall. The average annual rainfall in

Saurashtra and Kachchh, the worst affected, is

578 mm. This year, according to newspape r rep orts,

i t was very depr essed but s t i ll around a coup le of

hundred mil l imetres (mm). But the people of

Saurash tra and Kachch h let the water go.It do es no t

mat ter how much ra in you ge t , i f you don t

cap ture i t you can s t i l l be shor t o f w a te r . It i sunbelievab le but it is true that Cherrap unji which

gets 11,000 mm annual rainfall, still suffers from

serious dr inking w ater shorta ges.

In fact, we ha ve consistently ar gued that there is

no v i l lage in India that cannot meet i t s bas ic

dr inking and cooking needs through ra inw ater

harvest ing. Figures speak for themselves. Indias

average annual rainfall is 1170 mm. It varies from 100

mm in t he d eser ts o f Wester n India to 15,000 mm in

th e h igh r ainfall hills of the North eas t. Nearly 12 per

cent of the coun try rec eives an average ra infall of lessthan 610 mm per annum while 8 per cent receives

more than 2500 mm. But mor e tha n 50 per c ent of this

rain falls in abou t 15 days and less than 100 hours out

of a total of 8760 hours in a year. The tot al number of

rainy days can r ange from a low of five da ys in a year

in the desert regions of Gujarat and Rajasthan

though on some of these d ays there can be high-inten-

sity rainstorms to 150 days in the Northeast.

Therefore, it is very importan t to capt ure th is rainwa-

ter which just comes and goes in a few hours.1

Recognising this fact th at almost all the r ain comes

down in a few years, our ancestors had learnt to

harvest water in a variety of ways:

(a) They harves ted the ra in drop d irec t ly . From

rooftops, they co llected water and s tored i t in

tankas buil t in their courtyards. From open

community lands, they collected the r ain and

sto red it in art ificial wells c alled kundis.


Traditionally, our ancestors have harvested water through tankas,

zings, ahars and johads

Cherrapunji has water scarcity for nine months in a year despite

having 11,000 mm of annual rainfall. This should be an eye opener.

If you dont harvest the rain, there will never be enough water


5/16

(b) They harves ted monsoon runoff by captur ing

water from swollen stre ams du ring the mo nsoon

season and stored it in zings in Lada kh, ahars in

Bihar,johads in Rajasth an and eris in Tamil Nad u,

to nam e a few.

(c) They harvested water from flooded r ivers in

places like nort h Bihar and West Bengal.

In 1991, Ind ia ha d 587,226 inhab ited villages with a

tot al pop ulation of 629 million giving us an a verage

pop ulation of 1071 pers ons per village, up from 942pers ons in 1981. Let us, th erefore, assume t hat t he

average po pulation of an Indian village tod ay is abou t

1200. Ind ias ave rage annual ra infall is about 1170 mm.

If even only half this water c an be capt ured , though

with technology inputs this can be greatly increased,

an aver age Indian village need s 1.12 hect ares of land

to capture 6.57 million litres of water it will use in a

year for cooking and d rinking. If there is a dro ught a nd

rainfall levels d ip to h alf the norm al, the land req uired

would rise to a mere 2.24 hectares. The amount of

land nee ded t o meet the d rinking water needs of an

average village will vary from 0.10 hectares inArunachal Prad esh (average popu lation 236) where

villages a re small and rainfall high to 8.46 hectar es in

Delhi where villages a re big (average pop ulation 4769)

and rainfall is low. In Rajasthan, th e land r equired will

vary from 1.68-3.64 hectares in different meteoro-

logical regions and, in Gujarat, it will vary from

1.72-3.30 he cta res (see table 2: EVERY VILLAGE IN

INDIA CAN MEET ITS OWN WATER NEEDS: Land

area nee ded per village in d ifferent states of India to

capture enough rainwater to meet drinking and

cooking water needs). And, of course, any m ore wat er

the villagers catch can go for irrigation.

Does this sound like an impossible task? Is there any

village that does not have this land availability?

Indias t otal land area is over 300 million hec tare s. Let

us assume that Indias 587,000 villages can harvest

the runoff from 200 million hectares of land, exclud-

ing inaccessible forest areas, high mountains and

other uninhabited terrains, that s t i l l gives every

village on average acce ss t o 340 hec tar es or a r ainfall

endowment of 3.75 billion litres of water. These

ca l cu la t i ons show the po t en t ia l o f ra inwa te r

harvesting is enormous a nd und eniable. There is

just no reas on w hats oever for thirst in India .

Therefore, it is possible to drought proof the entire

country. Not just drinking water, most of Indias

agricultural fields s hou ld also be ab le to get some

irrigation water to grow less water-intensive crop s

every year throu gh rainwater harvesting. The s trategy

for drought proof ing would be to ensure thatevery v i l lage captures a l l the runoff resul t ing

from the rain falling over its entire land and the

associated government revenue and forest lands,

espec ia l ly dur ing years w hen the ra in w as nor-

mal , and s tore i t in tanks or pond s or use i t to

recharge the deple t ing groundwater . I t would

then have enough wa ter in its tanks or in its w ells

to cult ivate substa ntial lands w ith wa ter-sa ving

crops like millets and m aiz e.

Even with a national water grid o r all the pro posed

dams l ike those on th e Narmada being built , therejust isnt going to be en ough river water to p rovide

irrigation to every single village of India. A subs tan tial

par t of Indias agricultural land s will rem ain rainfed.

This is confirmed by official statistics. The National

Commission for Integrated Water Resources

Development Plan has est imated th at th e ul t imate

irrigation potential is as much as 140 million

hec tare s. Some 75.9 million h ecta res will be irrigated

by su rface water sch emes of which 58.47 million

hectares wil l be irr igated by major and medium

pro jects an d 17.38 million h ectar es will have t o b e

irrigated by minor irrigation sch emes like tanks 2

while 64.1 million hectares will be irrigated by

groundwater .3 But all this is still a dream. As of

1992-93, 119.3 million h ect ar es were rainfed , of which

78.43 million h ecta res wer e und er foodgrains.4

But there i s enough ra in which wi th a good

combina tion of rainw ater har vesting and ground-

wa te r r echarge , can increase and s tab i l i s e the

prod uct iv i ty of th is ra infed land . These lands

5


India receives most of its rainfall in just 100 hours out of 8760

hours in a year. If this water is not captured or stored, their will be

no water for the rest of the year

Only 100 mm rainfall falling on a 1 hectare plot can yield upto

1 million litres of water


6/16

6


Tab le 2: EVERY VILLAGE IN IN DIA CAN M EET ITS OW N W ATER NEEDS: Land ar ea needed p er village in

different states of India to capture enough rainw ater to m eet drinking and cooking w ater needs

(in hectares)

State Meteorological Average Estimated Land area Land area neededdivisions annual no. of needed per per village to meet

rainfall villagers village to meet drinking and cooking(millimetres) per drinking and water needs assuming

village, cooking water severe drought2001 needs assuming conditions, that is,

half of normal 50 per cent declinerainfall is captured in normal rainfall

(hectares) (hectares)

INDIA 1,170 1220 1.14 2.28

Andaman Andaman andand Nicobar NicobarIslands Islands 2,967 408 0.16 0.32

Arunachal Arunachal 2782 236 0.10 0.20Pradesh Pradesh

Assam Assam andMeghalaya 2818 807* 0.32 0.64

Meghalaya Assam andMeghalaya 2818 311 0.12 0.24

Nagaland Nagaland, Manipur,Mizoram and Tripura 1881 1153 0.68 1.36

Manipur Nagaland, Manipur,Mizoram and Tripura 1881 726 0.42 0.84

Mizoram Nagaland, Manipur,

Mizoram and Tripura 1881 549 0.32 0.64

Tripura Nagaland, Manipur,Mizoram and Tripura 1881 3496 2.04 4.08

West 1. Sub-Himalayan 2739 1602 1.1.0-1.22* 2.20-2.44*Bengal West Bengal and

Sikkim2. Gangetic West 1439

Bengal

Sikkim 1. Sub-Himalayan 2739 1132 0.46 0.92West Bengal andSikkim

Orissa Orissa 1489 683 1.10 2.20

Bihar 1. Bihar Plateau 1326 1367 1.12-1.26* 2.24-2.52*2. Bihar Plains 1186

Uttar Pradesh 1. Uttar Pradesh 1025 1026 0.68-1.26* 1.36-2.52*2. Plain of West 896

Uttar Pradesh3. Hills of West

Uttar Pradesh 1667

Haryana Haryana, Chandigarhand Delhi 617 2,258 4.00 8.00

Delhi Haryana, Chandigarhand Delhi 617 4769* 8.46 16.92

Chandigarh Haryana, Chandigarhand Delhi 617 2647* 4.70 9.40

Continued


7/16

7


Continue

State Meteorological Average Estimated Land area Land area needed

divisions annual no. of needed per per village to meet

rainfall villagers village to meet drinking and

(millimetres) per drinking and cooking water

village, cooking water needs assuming

2001 needs assuming severe drought

half of normal conditions, that is,

rainfall is 50 per cent decline

captured in normal rainfall

(hectares) (hectares)

Punjab Punjab 649 1345 2.26 4.52

Himachal Himachal Pradesh 1251 328 0.28 0.56

Pradesh

Jammu and

Kashmir Jammu and Kashmir 1011 1140 1.24 2.48

Rajasthan 1. West Rajasthan 313 1039 1.68-3.64* 3.36-7.28*

2. East Rajasthan 675

Madhya 1. Madhya Pradesh 1017 867 0.70-0.94* 1.40-1.88*

Pradesh 2. East Madhya 1338

Pradesh

Gujarat 1. Gujarat region 1107 1741 1.72-3.30* 3.44-6.60*

2. Saurashtra and 578

Kachchh

Goa Konkan and Goa 3005 1816* 0.66 1.32

Maharashtra 1. Konkan and Goa 3005 1389 0.50-1.72* 1.00-3.44*

2. Madhya 901

Maharashtra

3. Marathwada 882

4. Vidarbha 1034

Andhra 1. Coastal Andhra 1094 2231 2.34-3.60* 4.68-7.20*

Pradesh Pradesh

2. Telengana 961

3. Rayalaseema 680

Tamil Nadu Tamil Nadu and

Pondicherry 998 2627 2.88 5.76

Pondicherry Tamil Nadu andPondicherry 998 1106* 1.32 2.64

Karnataka 1. Coastal Karnataka 3456 1343 0.42-2.02* 0.84-4.04*

2. North Interior 731

Karnataka

3. South Interior 1126

Karnataka

Kerala Kerala 3055 14,083 5.04 10.08

Lakshadweep Lakshadweep 1515 3,228 2.34 4.68

Notes: *Calculation based on the assumption that average village population in different meteorological sub-divisions is the same as that of the state.

Source: India Meteorological Department for normal rainfall data and projections of average population in 2000 based on Census of India data for 1981 and 1991.


8/16

today s uppor t some of the poores t p eople in the

countr y. And if w e don t do this, peop le living in

rainfed a reas w il l not prosper .

3. Drought-proofing vs large-scale irrigation

But for th is to hap pen, our p lanners and pol i t i -

c ians w i l l have to s top confus ing i rr igat ion for

dro ught-pro ofing with large-sca le irrigation for

Green Revolution-style a gricultural developm ent.

Otherwise, the country w ill get its priorities w rongand tens of millions of poor people will continue

to su ffer the horro rs o f drought. Depending on the

availability of money and reso lution of prob lems like

rehabilitation, both can b e attempt ed but the p riority

must go to d rought-proofing measures which r equire

little mone y in com par ison and will bring results ver y

qu ickly, within 5-10 years .

Drought -proo fing and large scale irrigation de velop-

ment are not a s ubst itute of each oth er. What one can

do, the o ther cannot. Firstly, because e ven after all

the pr oposed dams ar e built to p romote large-scaleirrigation development and interlinking of rivers

takes place no t every p iece of the count rys cu ltivat-

ed land will see the benefit of canal irrigation. These

lands will have to d epend either on groundwater or

local water ha rvest ing. These two will also h ave to go

together bec ause hea vy use of groundwater can on ly

be s ustained if there are local efforts to keep rechar g-

ing the groun dwate r. Therefore, large-sca le irrigation

development is no substitute for drought-proofing

based o n local water harvesting systems and sus tain-

able use of groundwater.

The se cond argument against large-scale irrigation

develop ment follows from th e first . Big dam s ca n only

help to create pockets of Green Revolutions-style

agricultural prod uction (with water -intensive cr ops )

but th ey cannot dr ought pro of the whole country. As

a result they can at best create national food

security as the y have done u ptil now which means

that few distr icts of country generate a huge

agricultura l surp lus which is then use d to feed the

ones which ar e doing agriculturally poo rly, esp ecially

during drought years.

But t hey ca nno t cre ate local food secu rity which

means that al l areas of the country have water

management s trategies to ensure that local food

production is as pro ductive as p ossible and stable

even during water-short years. Local food security is

as impor tant a s nat ional food s ecur ity. Which Bhil or

Oraon adivasi, for instance, wants to depen d only on

grains from Punjab? All of them would like to growenough grain at least to feed themselves. Water

harvesting and ground water together can d efinitely

drought-proof the coun try and cr eate local food s ecu-

rity which big dams cannot. Then Indias p oor people

and p oor land s will not have to s uffer th e ignom iny of

the kind they h ad to suffer th is year. But th e govern-

ment ha s to rea lise th at Indians canno t survive on a

single-tra ck water mana gement p olicy.

In ad dition, it is importa nt to rea lise that Indias

futur e food secu rity even from its so -called Green

Revolution areas w ill depend heavily on a nation-w ide groundw ater recharge programme, which can

only be taken by individua l communities through

rainw ater harvesting. If this is not done, agriculture

will suffer even in curr ent irrigated ar eas because of the

increasing overexploitation of groundwater and

lowering of groundwater tables acro ss th e countr y.

With more than 17 million tubewells and borewells

energised b y diesel and electr icity, ground water is now

used to irrigate more than half of the countrys

irrigated area. And as areas irrigated by groundwater

show higher productivity than those irrigated by

canals, the contribution of groundwater to Indias total

agricultural output from irrigated a reas is much more

than that of canals. During drought years, when rivers

dry up, groundwater becom es the main source of water

both for drinking and irrigation.5 India n a griculture

and rura l life is toda y heavily dependent on ground-

w ater. Further low ering of groundw ater ta bles can

seriou sly threa ten India s har d-ear ned food

security at a time when India w ill need to prod uce

more food to feed its grow ing pop ulation .

8


The solution lies in harvesting rainwater through capturing, storing

and recharging it and later using it during prolonged parched periods

Several village communities have shown their commitment,

potential and perseverance in drought-proofing their own villages

even during the present crisis


9/16

4. Small means even more water

Let us look at the relevance of village-bas ed r ainwater

harvest ing from yet anot her point of view. The keycompo nent o f water man agement is stor age espe-

cially in a co untr y like India wher e th e mon soo n gives

us on average about one hund red ho urs of rain and

the n not hing for th e rem aining 8,660 hou rs in a year.

This water can be captur ed in:

a) large reservoirs with large catchments by build-

ing large dams ,

b) in small tanks and ponds with small catchments,

or

c) by storing it in a way that it percolates down into

the ground and gets stored as groundwater.

In fact, the re is str ong scientific eviden ce to s how

that village-scale rainwater harvesting will yield

much mo re water th an big or medium dams, making

the latter an extremely cost-ineffective and u nscien-

tific way of providing key water n eeds esp ecially in

dry areas. Some very instruct ive lessons can be

learnt from the work of Israeli scientist Michael

Evenari who has prod uced th e best co rpus o f knowl-

edge on th is subject from th e bone-dry Negev desert

where t he aver age annu al rainfall is a mere 105 mm.

Evenari was intr igued by t he fact that the ancientIsra eli civilisat ion had built towns right in the middle

of the Negev desert with t heir own agriculture and

water supply systems much l ike the towns of

Jodhpur an d Jaisalmer that the ent erprisingMarwaris

developed in the Thar d esert. Both t he Israelis and

the Marwaris used the r ain they received with greatingenuity to meet their food and water ne eds. In his

effort t o reco nstruc t th e ancient farms of the Negev,

Evenar i came up with a very s urp rising finding: Water

harvested from small watersheds per hectare of

watershed ar ea was much more in quantity than th at

collected o ver large waters hed s. On hindsight this

makes eminent sense beca use water collected over

larger waters heds will have to run over a larger area

before it is collected an d a large part will get lost in

small pud dles and de press ions, as soil moisture and

through evaporation.

This loss of w ater ca n be stunningly high. While a 1ha waters hed in the Negev yielded as much as 95 cubic

metres of water per h ectare per year, a 345 ha water-

shed yielded only 24 cum/ha/year. In other words, as

much as 75 per cen t of the water that c ould be collect-

ed was lost. The loss was even h igher d uring a drought

year. After yea rs of resea rch , Evenar i summed his find-

ings a s follows: during drou ght years with less

tha n 50 mm of rainfall (norma l rainfall in t he Negev

desert is about 105 mm) wa tersheds larger than

50 ha will not produce any a ppreciable w ater yield

while s mall natur al water sh eds will yield 20-40 cubic

metres per hectare and microcatchments (smallerthan 0.1 hectare) as much as 80-100 cubic metres

per hectare (see table 3: THE SURPRISING

9


Table 3 : THE SURPRISING EFFECT OF SIZE: The ef fect of the size of catchments on the quantity of w a ter

har vested a s found in the Negev desert (in case of ca tchments w ith a 1 0 p er cent slope and a 1 05 mm

rainfall year)

A number of factors determine how much rain falling over a watershed will turn into runoff which can be collected by villagers

for their drinking and irrigation needs. This table shows that all other factors like slope remaining the same, the larger the size

of the catchment, the less runoff (water) can be collected from it. This is because in large catchments water has to run over larg-

er distances before it gets collected and during that period, a lot of the water is lost in puddles and small depressions, in evapo-

ration or through infiltration into the soil. Therefore, small catchments give the maximum water. And the difference can be quitehigh. As the table shows, 3000 microcatchments of 0.1 hectare each wil l give five times more water together than one catchment

of 300 hectares even though the total land area from which the rain is harvested remains the same. In simpler words, in drought-

prone areas, 10 dams with a one hectare catchment each will give substantially more water than one large dam with a 10

hectare catchment.

S.No. Size of catchment Quantity of water harvested Percentage of annual(hectares) (cubic metres / hectare) rainfall collected

1 Microcatchment (a) 160 cubic metres/ hectare 15.21%

2 20 hectares 100 cubic metres/ hectare 9.52%

3 300 hectares 50 cubic metres/ hectare 3.33%

Notes: (a) A microcatchment is a very small catchment of size upto 1000 square metres or 0.1 hectare.

Source: Michael Evenari et al1971, The Negev: The Challenge of a Desert, Oxford University Press, UK.


10/16

10

EFFECT OF SIZE: The effect o f the size of catchmen ts

on the quantity of water harvested as found in

the Negev dese rt in case o f catchments with a 10 per

cent slope and a 105 mm rainfall year, and table 4:

EVEN GREATER EFFECT DURING DROUGHT:

The effect of the size of catchments on the quantity

of water harvested found in the Negev desert

during drought years with less than 50 millimetres of

rainfall).

These were cr itical findings becaus e the amount of

rainwater one can collect depends on the amount of

land from which the runoff can be harvested. But

Evenari was finding that even if you have the same

amount of land you will collect more water if you

break up th e land into many small catchm ents th an if

you collect water from it as one catchment. Several

stud ies cond ucte d in India by th e Centr al Soil and

Water Conser vation Resear ch and Training Institute

in Dehra dun also sh ow a clear relationsh ip between

size of catchment and a mount o f runoff that can be

captur ed. One stud y shows that just increasing the

size of the catch ment from 1 ha to ab out 2 ha reduc es

the water collected p er hectar e by as much as 20 per

cent (see graph 2: EFFECTS OF SIZE ON QUANTITY

OF WATER HARVESTED: Studies from India) .

Several other studies conducted by the Central Soil

and Water Conser vation Resea rch Institut e in Agra,

Bellary and Kota and an other study cond ucted in the

high ra infall region of Shillong, have all foun d t ha t

smaller watersh eds give higher amount s of water per

hectar e of catchm ent area.6In simple w ords , all this

means that in a d rought-prone area where w ater

is scarce, 10 t iny dams w ith a catchment of 1 ha

each w il l col lect much more w ater than one larg-

er dam with a catchment of 10 ha (see diagram 1:

SMALLER CATCHMENTS GIVE MUCH MORE

WATER: One dam w ith a catchment of 10 hectares

will collect much less water than 10 dams with onehectare catchement each).

It shou ld not be s urprising that t he large number of

medium-size dams that have been constructed in

Sauras htra store d very little water in this drought year

and s tarted going dry by Decemb er 1999. But th en th e

answer to drought-proofing of the area lies not in

mega-water harvesting projects with medium and

large d ams. It lies in s mall water harvest ing structure s

which are const ructed at t he farm and village-level.

To demo nstr ate h is findings, Evenari even de veloped

an orch ard in the middle of the b one-dry Negev deser t

by creating a separate m icrocatchme nt a plot of

land ranging from 15.6 sq m to 1000 sq m for each

tree to maximise the q uanti ty of harvested water .

Therefore, look at i t any w ay, community-ba sed,

sma l l -scale ra inwa ter ha rves t ing is no t jus t

capa ble of prov id ing more than dr inking w ater

needs even in the worst of drought situations b ut

is also the mos t efficient w ay to collect wa ter.


Table 4 : EVEN GREATER EFFECT DURING DROUGHT: The effect of the size of catchments on the qua ntity

of w ater ha rvested a s found in the N egev desert during drought yea rs with less than 5 0 millimetres

rainfall

The table below shows clearly that in a desert very little water can be collected from large catchments in a drought year.

S. No. Size of catchment Quantity of water harvested Percentage of annual(hectares) (cubic metres/ hectare) rainfall collected

1 Microcatchment (a) 80-100 cubic metres/ hectare 16-20%

2 Small natural watersheds 20-40 cubic metres/ hectare 4-8%

3 Larger than 50 hectares No appreciable water yield 0%

Notes: (a) A microcatchment is a very small catchment of size upto 1000 square metres or 0.1 hectare.

Source: Michael Evenari et al 1971, The Negev: The Challenge of a Desert, Oxford University Press, UK.

An average Indian village requires just 1.14 hectares of land to

meet its drinking water needs

Small is ecologically efficient as 10 dams with 1 hectare

catchment will store more water than 1 dam of 10 hectare


11/16

5. Ministers are now talking of rainwater

harvesting

In the last few weeks, since the media storm ondro ught h it our politicians , several of th em, including

the p rime minister and t he ministers for rural develop-

ment, urban development and water resou rces, have

made statements regarding the importance of a

community-based rainwater harvesting strategy to

drought-proof the co untry.

The first statement came from the r ural development

minister , Sund erlal Patwa, tha t the governme nt hop es

to gradually replace a government-oriented pro-

gramme by a people-oriented, decentralised and

demand-driven rural water supply programme, the

budget for the pr ogramme is being increased by 8 percen t, from Rs. 1800 cror e last year t o Rs. 1960 cro re in

2000-01, and a fifth of this b udget will be given t o s tat e

governments which undertake commu nity-based pro-

grammes so t hat villagers h ave a de cisive role. A par t

of the total capital cost and op erat ion and mainte-

nance cos t will be born e by th e users . Some 58 dis-

tr icts have been identified to t ry out this scheme.7

Meanwhile, a stee ring comm ittee has also b een set u p

to stud y the r echarge of drinking water sources.8

The second st atement cam e from the p rime minister

who told the parl iament that only six per cent of the countrys rain is being conserved and that

greater emp hasis will henceforth be placed on water

harvesting.9

The third statement has come from Jagmohan,minister for urban development, who has suggested

that water harvest ing should be mad e compulsory

under the urban building bye-laws of the country.10

The fourth statement has come from the minister of

water re sour ces, C P Thakur, who in an interview in

late Apr il had mer ely talked abo ut water h arves ting in

a few buildings in Delhi like the Shr am Shakti Bha wan

and the Indira Gandhi National Open University and

som e nine bu ildings in Jaipur as his key initiatives in

this area, but by early April he was announcing a

whopp ing Rs. 550 crore plan to r echa rge groundwat er

by cons tructing about 10,000 water h arvesting struc-ture s in water -scar city regions with the se fund s

going direct ly to village ben eficiary group s an d wate r

users associations.11,12

There have been developments in the states, too.

Andhra Pradeshs chief minister, N Chandrababu

Naidu, has announced and already held the f irs t

meeting of a Water Conservation Mission t o r evamp

its existing watershed development programme.13,14

The chief minister told t he Indian Express in an inter-

view, Till now, we have d ump ed c rore s of rupe es

into th e watershed programme. But th e results arevery disappointing. Unless farmers are involved, the

11


Diagra m 1 : SM ALLER CATCHM EN TS GIVE M UCH MO RE W ATER: One d am w ith a catchment of 10 hectares

w ill collect much less w ater than 1 0 da ms w ith one hectare catchment each

Catchment Area: 10 hectares Catchment Area: 10 hectares


12/16

12


Size of Catchment (in square metres)

R.N. Adhikari et al-CSWCRTI

Size of Catchment (in hectares)

Annualrunoffcollected

(%o

frunoff-causingrainfall)

17.1

13.7212.5

0

6

12

18

0.99 1.85 2.35

Bellary 1996-CSWCRTI

56.7

44.6

39.337.6

0

10

20

30

40

50

60

40.5 81 121.5 162


(%o


Bellary 1993-CSWCRTI

Size of Catchment (in square met res)


(%o


58

50

39 35

0

10

20

30

40

50

60

70

2 3 4 5

Kota 1985-CSWCRTI

11.9

0.2 0.030

2

4

6

8

10

12

14

4000 8500 14500Size of Catchment (in square met res)


(%o


Shillong 1988-Singh 1988

22.6

29.3

10.66.3

0

5

10

15

20

25

30

35

0.5 5 40 48Size of Catchment (in square met res)


(%o


Agra 1961-1965 (Avg.)-CSWCRTI

8400 9640

13.4

11.8

0

4

8

12

16



(%o


Agra 1990-CSWCRTI

0

10

20

30

40

50

60

1550 1970 2060 2900

53.8

27.6 29.5

18.2



(%o


Agra 1994-CSWCRTI



(%

ofrunoff-causingrainfall)

73.5

52

0

10

20

30

40

50

60

70

80

8 25

Graph 2 : EFFECT OF SIZE ON QUAN TITY OF W ATER HARVESTED: Studies from Ind ia

Several studies carried out is India show the same results that were found in the Negev desert: Larger catchments resulted in a smaller

percentage of the annual rainfal l falling on the catchment which resulted in runoff being captured.

Source: J S Samra , directo r, Central Soil and Water Conse rvation Research Training Institute (CSWCRTI), Dehr adun ,personal comm unication


13/16

situation cannot be reversed.15 The Andhr a Pradesh

government plans to spe nd Rs. 400 crore throu gh the

new mission an d b ring 10 million h ecta res of land

under good watershed management. In the areascho sen , villagers will be given Rs. 20 lakh to develop a

500-hectare watershed .16

In the urban context , the Delhi government has

expressed interest in water harvesting. Given t he fact

tha t ground water levels have declined by 4-10 metr es

in several parts of the Capital over the last d ecade,

the Delhi governm ent is cont emp lating a law to make

it mandator y for a ll new group housing societies to

har vest th at ra in falling within their com plexes.17 18

Meanwh ile, th e New Delhi Municipal Corpor ation h as

sanctioned a spe cial water har vesting project which

consists of water ponds being constructed in fourmajor parks: Talkatora Garden, Nehru Park, Lodi

Gard en a nd Kush ak Nullah.19

In Gujarat, irrigation m inister Nitin Patel sa id in late

April that the government is planning to construct

10,000 check dams acros s the s tate und er its Sarda r

Pate l Sahbh agi Jal Sanc ha y Yojana . Villagers will have

to pro vide 40 per cent of the cost of the check dam.

The governme nt ha s rece ived over 16,000 app lica-

tions of which 8,563 have been approved and, to

begin the exercise, the government h as sanct ioned

Rs. 100 crore for the construction of 2,000 checkdams. 20 This is a remarkable change as compar ed to

the past. Between 1991 and 1999-2000, various

departments of the Gujarat government only built a

tota l of 1,341 che ck dam s.21

In Madhya Pradesh , a workshop h eld in Neemuch dis-

trict in late April emphasized th e importan ce of water

conservation through water har vesting and th e dis-

tr ict collector promised to pr omote roo ftop water

harvesting in the to wn and draw up a p lan for rest or-

ing and d eveloping ponds in each gram panchayat.22

I f a l l the commitments made by the Centra l

Minister and the State government of Gujara t and

Andhra Pradesh, come t rue , a sum of Rs . 1500-

2000 crore has b een committed for rainw ater ha r-

vesting. This is indeed heartening. Equally hearten-

ing are reports of people promoting rainwater

har vesting. Unde r th e inspiration of the local Anand a

Baba Ash ram , a Lakhot a Jal Sanch ay Abh iyan Samiti

has been set up to collect money from the residents

of Jamnagar t own to de silt the the h uge Lakhot a Lake

that h ad be en constr ucted b y the former r oyal family.

The pe ople of the town have given th eir full supp ort

to this exercise.

23

Under the leadership of theSwaminarayan gurukul in Rajkot, found ation s tone s

were laid for check dams in more than 15 villages in

just five days around the middle of April.24 In

Ahmedabad city itself, the Khadia Itihas Samiti

head ed by the st ates health minister, has comp leted

a survey of the und erground water tan ks (tanka) that

were tradi t ionally buil t in each house to harvest

roof-top rainwater and is planning a campaign to

revive th em 25 Care Today, an organisation set up the

magazine India Today, has announced that i t has

identified two pro jects, one each in Rajasth an and

Gujarat, to h elp villagers des ilt th eir trad itional water

harvesting structures.26 The Supreme Court, hear ing acase on water shortage in Delhi , has ordered the

Delhi Developmen t Author ity (DDA) t o h arves t r ain

water sta rting off with th e wate r-thirs ty DDA colonies

of Vasant Kun j in New Delhi.27

These developments show that commu nity-ba sed

ra inwa ter harves t ing may w el l become a w ide ly

adop ted pa radigm in the years to come b oth in the

urba n and rural a reas. But the quest ion is: Will

this a ll lead to effective results, esp ecially in the

rura l context?

6. Structures with a social process

Building w ater ha rvesting structures is a very easy

task any contractor endo w ed w ith a bit of money

can do so. But building an effective structure w hich

sta rts o ff a proces s of self-ma nagement in village

communities is a much more difficult task . This is

poss ible only if each structu re is the result of a cooper-

ative social process-the ab ility of a comm unity to work

in coopera tion. Water is a s trange nat ural resour ce: It

can unite a community as easily as it can divide it.

Therefore, it is essent ial that a str ong social proce ss

precede each structure to build what economists call

the social cap ital. This is an a rea w here the track-

record of government a gencies is literally non-exis-

tent and inflexible government rules mil i tate

against the very p rinciple of social mo bilisation .

In other words, the above statements b y state and

Central officials are as much a caus e of worry as of

app lause. Fixed an nual targets will prove to be a total

13


Social mobilisation is a prerequisite for effective water harvesting

activity


14/16

disas ter : mon ey liter ally going down th e dr ain. At least

the first t wo years of any water h arvesting programme

will have t o b e s pent on social mobilisation. This will

mean, firstly, creating awareness and confidence in thepeople that water harvesting works. Once this is

achieved, it mean s sitting with t he p eople to create vil-

lage institutions which will decide whe re, when and

how the water ha rvesting structur es will be built, who

will build the structures, how much the villagers will

provide to share the cost o f the structu res, and once

the struc ture is built, how will its benefit, that is, water,

will be shared amongst the villagers, especially in the

early years when wate r is scar ce, and h ow will its use

be r egulated. Every part of the comm unity will have to

be involved b y making each s ection from t he landed

to the landless and womens group s appr eciate the

ben efits it will derive from the exercise. And b y makingefforts to ensure that benefits do indeed flow to each

section of the comm unity.

It is for th is reason t hat water harvesting works best

when comb ined with waters hed development. It is in

the nat ure of structures to bene fit mainly those who

have land leaving the landless without any benefits

and there fore alienated from the exercise. But d evel-

opment of watershed s to conserve both water and

soil not o nly increase s so il and water conser vation

and leaf and grass prod uction on what are usually

common lands, which can greatly benefit landlesshouse holds, but also increases the life and effective-

ness of the structures that benefi t the landed by

reducing siltation. Contractors must be totally kept

out and all wage benefits should go to the landless.

Nothing works bet ter than when villagers see a ll this in

actual pract ice. For th is purpo se, it is important t o

have funds to take interested villagers to see villages

where such principles are being observed and how

water harvesting has changed their lives. Under the

Madhya Pradesh Rajiv Gandhi Watershed Develop-

ment Mission (RGWDM), busloads of tribals from

Jhabua were taken t o se e Ralegan Siddhi. Tarun Bharat

Sangh (TBS) also r egularly organise s Paani Yatras in

neighbo uring areas so that villagers who h ave done it

can talk face to face with thos e who h ave not.

All this means that the progress in the first few years

will be s low. This was the cas e b oth with RGWDM and

TBS. But th e exper ience of bot h also sh ows th at rep li-

cation comes very rapidly once the idea catches on.

As R Gopalakrishnan, who oversees RGWDM in

Madh ya Prad esh , puts it, In th e first two year s of the

programme, the res ults were so slow that we kept

wonder ing wheth er we a re getting it right. In oth erwords, governments must be prepared to accept that

the ir first year s effort will bring noth ing, seco nd and

third year maybe something, and fourth and fifth

years hop efully a lot. It is a gradua l exercise. The

number of villages par ticipating in the water h arvest-ing progra mme of TBS also grew slowly at first and

then very rapidly in th e later years a s th e villagers

became more and more confident of the value of

what they were doing (see graph 3: Promoting

environmental self-reliance).

Social mobilisat ion is essen tial for th e succes s of water

harvest ing for s everal other reason s. Firstly, the com -

munity must b e closely involved in the c onstr uction of

the water harvesting structures to ensure that they are

built with techn ical compet ence; that is, the s ite is

chosen properly, the technical parameters are

correct, etc. Badly built structures will not deliverwater an d ca n get ea sily washed away. Secondly, even

in proper ly built structur es which de liver water, once

the water starts getting available either as increasing

levels of groundwater or as surface water in a tank, the

commun ity will have t o st art managing the available

water which in the earlier years m ay not be eno ugh to

irrigate lands of all the farmers. In those years, the

farmers will have to share the water and use it on

crops that dont use t oo much water. This will happen

if there is already a commu nity process as sociated

with the water har vesting structure. Otherwise a few

people will grab the water leading the rest of thecommun ity alienated.

14


Graph 3: Promoting environmental self-reliance

In the first three years, few villages got involved in the waterharvesting programme of Tarun Bharat Sangh. With passage oftime, the numbers, however, grew rapidly as villagers gainedconfidence in the programme and were able to see a positiveoutcome of their efforts.

45

97

500

550

650

0

100

200

300

400

500

600

700

1986

1987

1988

1989

1994

1996

1998

Numberofvillages

181

YearSource: Tarun Bharat Sangh, Alwar.


15/16

The government will also have to review and revise

old British-time laws like the Indian Easement Act

which prevent public participation in water mana ge-

ment. Management expe rts point ou t, God is in the

details.Patw a, Thakur a nd Chandra bab u Naidu

and others l ike them wil l have to ma ke sure the

culture of rigid and inflexible government rules is

changed to fit the task of social mo bilisation . And

as govern ment officials are n ot s ocial workers, all this

will hap pen only if th ey ha nd o ver wor k to NGOs with

a track recor d, howsoever few they might be, and

wait patiently for results to come. But if they want agovernment programme , it can s till be done, but then

they th emselves will have to overs ee the implemen-

tation of the p rogramm e to keep the ir warring and

err ant officials in place. Inter -dep art ment al coord ina-

tion between the d epartm ents o f revenue, soil con-

servation, irrigation, forests and agriculture is

essential for water harvest ing-watershed develop-

ment programme s to succeed . The direct supervision

of the Madh ya Prad esh chief ministe r o f the RGWDM

was a key element of the p rogrammes success . It is

not surprising that despite the drought this year ,

newspaper rep orts from western Madhya Pradeshwere few. Other wise the r esu lt will be a lot o f waste d

mud, bricks and mor tar and alienated peop le, with

water h arvesting getting a b ad name. Already, news-

paper report s are showing that there has been con-

siderable corruption in the check dams sponsored by

the govern ment o f Gujarat. 28 We mus t make sure

that water harves t ing does not become money

harvesting.

7. Reviving systems which have gone into disuse

I t is not enough to build new water harvest ing

struct ures. Efforts m ust b e made also to revive the

vast t reasure th at already exists but has gone into

disuse . Accor ding to o fficial estimate s, the re wer e

15.13 lakh tanks in India in 1986-87 95 per cent of

which were in eight s tates, Andhra Pradesh,

Karnataka, Kerala, Madhya Pradesh, Maharashtra,

Tamil Nadu, Uttar Pradesh and West Bengal. But

becaus e of silting and poo r maintenance, the gross

area irrigated by th em h ad come down from 4.78 mil-

lion h ect are s in 1962-63 to 3.07 million h ect are s in

1985-86 though many new tanks were constructed in

this pe riod. This repr esen ts a ca pital loss o f Rs. 5,000

crore .29 It is obvious that efforts must be ma de to

restor e these s tructur es to th eir full potent ial.

8. Rainwater harvesting can eradicate rural poverty

If wa ter ha rves t ing-w aters hed d eve lopment

programmes a re hand led w ell , the experience of

v i l lages l ike Sukhomajr i , Ralegan Siddhi and

several v i l lages in Alwar d is t r ic t has c lear lyshow n that ra inwa ter harves t ing i s not jus t the

sta rt ing point for meeting drinking wa ter needs

but the s ta r t ing point of an ef for t to era dicate

rural pover ty i t se l f , generate mass ive rural

employment and red uce distress migration from

rural areas to urban a reas. Increased and assured

water availability means increased and stable agricul-

tural production and improved animal husbandry

both of which together form th e fulcrum of the rura l

econo my. Rainwater har vesting has h elped Ralegan

Siddhi to transform itself from one of the most desti-

tute villages of the coun try in the 1970s to one o f therichest villages today. In all villages which have

regenerated t heir local economy with the h elp of

good management of their natural resourc es, distres s

rural-urban migration has been greatly reduced or

has been totally eliminated.

Another interesting dimension of community-based

rainwater harves ting is that it helps the genera te a

comm unity spirit within the village som eth ing tha t

is get t ing lost ac ross the country and b uild up

what economists call the social capital. In fact, we

can ar gue tha t if we want Panchayati Raj to work, then

the first thing thatpanchayats should be as ked to take

up is water har vesting har gaon ka apna talaab (a

tank in every village).

If it all makes so much sense then why is this para-

digm not accepted b y the government and sp read

acros s th e count ry? President K R Narayanan e ven

called for a nat ional movement for water harvest ing

in his last Republic Day address to the nat ion.

15


In Indian context, rainwater harvesting is indispensable for

fortifying food security, as rainfed land constitutes the bulk of the

cultivated land

Proficient water harvesting along with political wisdom and

community accountability can help solve rural poverty


16/16

16


The prob lem is really mind-sets . Rainw ater ha r-

ves t ing demands a new a pproach to governance

itself a pa rticipatory form of governance ra ther

than a top-dow n burea ucratic one . Unfortun ately,our po litical leaders have cre ated a c ulture of depe n-

dence on th e government and love to make promises,

howsoever hollow they may be, th at t hey will provide

everything to the people through government

largesse. Given this political mind-set, the water

bureau cracy, too, has developed a culture of provid-

ing services, howsoever poor and abysmal they may

be, rather t han one o f empowering people to develop

the ir own water sup plies. And it is st ill locked into the

big dam, pumps, p ipes and borewell paradigm. Water

resour ces minister, C P Thakur, today does n ot hes i-

tate in accepting the importance of rainwater har-

vesting but when push comes t o a sh ove, as it did, forexample, at the recent World Water Forum in the

Hague, he and t he en tire Indian de legation could do

nothing but talk about b ig dams. We are not h ere

going into th e merits of the s mall versus large dam

debat e in certain situations large dams could be

needed but there can be no d oubt that the small

has an e xtremely important r ole to play and th is is

being totally neglected. A balance b etween t he b ig

and t he s mall is essential.

But, nonetheless, there h as been a remarkable changein the pub lic discourse on the relevance of the cou n-

trys rainwater harvesting traditions in the last few

years , espec ially since Centre for Science and Environ-

ment (CSE) published Dying Wisdom: The rise, fall and

potential of Indias traditional water harvesting system s in

1997, a compelling accou nt of how th ese t rad itions still

work in many part s of the cou ntry even in the face of all

odds. The recent statements by the Central and state

ministers a re encouraging but th e government needs t o

go beyond th em. It sh ould heed the p residents advice

and pr epare a concrete p lan of action to de velop a

mass m ovement for water harvesting.

(The author w as a member of the World Water Commission

and is the director of the Centre for Science and Environment,

New Delhi)

Note:

If any member of parliament or state legislature is interested in

understanding this issue further, please do not hesitate to get in

touch with the author or w ith Indira Khurana, CSEs coordinator

for its Campaign to Make Water Everybo dys Business.

1. Anon 1999, Water an Overview Issues and Concerns, National

Commission for Integrated Water Resources Development Plan,

Nationa l Commiss ion for IWRDP, New Delhi, pp 6-7.

2. Anon 1999, Development and Management Issues Irrigation, Flood

Control, Hydropower and Navigation , National Commission for

Integrated Water Resources Development Plan, National

Commiss ion for IWRDP, New Delhi, p p 9-10.

3 . Anon 1999, Water Availabil ity and Requirements , National


Nationa l Commiss ion for IWRDP, New Delhi, p 36.

4 . Anon 1999, Water Availabil ity and Requirements , National


Nationa l Commiss ion for IWRDP, New Delhi, p 38.

5. Wor ld Bank/ Cen t r al Gr oundwa t e r Boa r d 1999, India: Water

Resources Management Groundwater Regulation and

Management, World Bank/Allied Publishers, Washington DC/New

Delhi, p 15.

6. J S Samra 2000, Central Soil and Water Conservation Research andTraining Institut e, Dehra dun, personal correspondence.

7. Anon 2000, Flood Of Promises To Deal With Lack of Water, Times

of India, New Delhi, April 20, p.12.

8. The Hindu, New Delhi, April 22, p.7.

9. Anon 2000, PM Calls for Moratorium on Bickerings, The Hindustan

Times, April 26.

10. Anon 2000, Water Harvesting may Become the Law, The Hindustan

Times, New Delhi, May 6.

11. Sonu Jain 2000, Water in India is Like Draup adi, There Are Five

Ministries That Deal With It , The Indian Express, New Delhi,

April 30.

12. H S Bartwal 2000, Centre Readies Rs. 550 Crore Plan To Recharge

Water Level, The Hindustan Times, New Delhi, May 5, p.12.

13. Anon 2000, Andhra Forms Conservation Panel, The Indian Express,

New Delhi, April 28.

14. Anon 2000, Water Conservation Mission Launched, The Hindu,

New Delhi, May 1.

15. S Ramakrishna 2000, AP Set to Revamp Watershed Project, Th eIndian Express, April 30.

16. Anon 2000, AP Government to Spend Rs 4,000 Crore to Conserve

Rainwater, The Pioneer, New Delhi, April 30.

17. Anon 2000, Depleting Water Table is Now a Capital Woe, Th e

Hindustan Times, New Delhi, April 29.

18. Anon 2000, Drafting of Bill on Harvesting Rainwater Begins, Th e

Indian Express, May 8.

19. Arati Bhargava 2000, Harvesting of Water: NDMC Gives Approval,

The Hindustan Times, May 5.

20. Anon 2000, Work on 10,000 Check Dams Begins, Times of India,

Ahmed abad , April 28.

21. Darshan Desai 2000, Drought and Deja vu, The Indian Express, New

Delhi, May 2.

22. Anon 2000, Ministers Call to Support Water Conservation

Scheme, Central Chronicle, Bhopa l, Apr il 30.

23. Rathin Das 2000, Jamnagar Cleans up Lakhota Lake, The Hindustan

Times, New Delhi, April 29.

24. Anon 2000, More Check Dam Projects take off in Amreli District,

Time s of India, Ahmedabad, April 18.

25. Tanvir Siddiqui 2000, Ahmedaba d Falls Back on Old Way of

Conserving Rainwater, Indian Express, New Delhi, May 2.

26. Anon 2000, Fight the Drought: New Innings, India Today, New

Delhi, May 15.

27. Anon 2000, Harvest Rainwater, SC orders DJB, The Hindustan

Times, New Delhi, May 11.

28. Anon 2000, Damning evidence against Junagadh check dams sites,

Times of India, New Delhi, May 17.

29. Anon 1999, Local Water Resources Development and

Management, National Commission for Integrated Water

Resources Development Plan, National Commission for IWRDP,

New Delhi, p 2.

R E F E R E N C E S

drought: try capturing the rain

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