In the drought-prone Ahmednagar district of Maharashtra lies Hiware Bazar, a village of about 1300 residents that is coping with this year’s severe drought better than others. For the past 20 years, Hiware Bazar has followed a careful plan for watershed management and water conservation that has been central to transforming this once poor village to a prosperous one today. This Quarterly examines the institutional and technical factors of Hiware Bazar’s success and draws some key lessons.
Figure 1: What is a watershed?
Watershed development refers to a set of measures that help retain water within a watershed. These include soil and water conservation, afforestation, grasslands development and protection of bio-mass. Area treatments are done on the land area of the watershed while drainage line treatments are done on natural drainage lines. Both sets of treatments hold rainwater longer to increase soil moisture and facilitate ground water recharge. Watershed programs are best undertaken on hilly terrain. Conservation efforts typically begin at the uppermost parts of the watershed before moving down the slope. This helps reduce soil erosion and siltation in downstream water harvesting structures. Development and preservation of non-arable lands is central to watershed development not just for its indirect benefits of raising the water table but also for its direct benefits like fuel and fodder.
Hiware Bazar began its watershed development program in 1992 with reforestation of their hilly forest land. Villagers also built trenches along contours in the hills to trap and slow rainwater runoff. Along natural drainage lines, they built shallow dams of stone, cement or earth. Once ground behind the dam walls is saturated, additional water remains stored as surface water (see Box 1). To allow groundwater stored in the upper reaches of the village to reach farms downstream, villagers undertook an ‘aquifer blast’ - a controlled underground explosion to create cracks for groundwater to flow through.
On individual plots, farmers have levelled land and constructed low earthen barriers along the perimeter to hold rainwater within the fields. Wealthier farmers have dug plastic-lined ‘ponds’ for additional surface water storage.
The village has successfully brought together financing from different government schemes to achieve their conservation plan (see Table 2). Villagers initiated a Joint Forestry Management program with the Forest Department for watershed work on forest land. Most treatments on non-forest land were paid for by Adarsh Gaon Yojana (AGY), a Maharashtra government ‘ideal village’ scheme with an emphasis on watershed development. All money received for watershed development was managed by Yashwant Krishi Gram and Watershed Development Trust (YKWDT), a non-governmental organization set up by Hiware Bazar’s Gram Sabha (GS) in 1994 as a pre-condition for AGY funds.
Voluntary labour by villagers (one member of each family) or shramdhaan has formed a critical component of watershed programs. Although introduced by AGY, the village has adopted this practice in much of its development work. Villagers provided free labour for the watershed program; only some part was paid for through government schemes or the Maharashtra Employment Guarantee Scheme (MEGS). To ensure quality of structures, when government funding was inadequate villagers contributed shramdhaan so funds could be used to purchase good quality construction materials. There is an equal emphasis on maintenance which to date is carried out using shramdhaan and money collected from villagers.
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