Government Strategy

The total renewable water resources of India are estimated at about 1900 sq km per annum. It is predicted that by 2025 large parts of India will join countries or regions having absolute water scarcity. Groundwater has emerged as the prime source of drinking and irrigation. About 92 per

cent of present groundwater withdraw! is beingused for irrigation purpose, thus contributing largely in food security of the country. The following steps have been taken by the government to implement the water harvesting programme:

1. Since sustainability of drinking water-source is of paramount importance for smooth functioning of rural water supply, 25 per cent out of 20 per cent of the allocation under Accelerated Rural Waler Supply Programme (ARWSP) has been earmarked exclusively for water harvesting schemes to make implementation of such schemes mandatory.

2. Similarly, 25 per cent out of the allocation under Prime Minister’s Gramodaya Yojana has also been earmarked for funding schemes under submission on sustainability.

3. MPs are requested to utilise Local Area Development Fund in their respective constituencies to take up water harvesting schemes.

4. Preparation of pilot projects on water harvesting in selected states have already been undertaken.

5. Further, preparation of user-friendly atlas type of document on traditional water-harvesting structures in various parts of the country has been initiated for popularising the concept of water harvesting amongst all concerned, including the community.

By adopting watershed as a unit, different location-specific measures are adopted and executed carefully in each of the topo-sequences according to capability. Considering the fact that the rainfed area in India is about 60 per cent of the country’s net sown area, and the vast area should not suffer from neglect and poverty, investment in watershed management for water-scarce regions (receiving rainfall below 75 cm) of India is an appropriate development intervention which warrants top priority from the point of social justice and containing the widening spatial imbalance between irrigated wet farming and dryland farming systems.

In brief, watershed development approach being an intensive one, appears to be infinitely expensive in a relative sense over the seed and fertilizer approach, but economic evaluation conducted at the Central Soil and Water Conservation Research Institute al Dchra Dun shows that this is not so. On the other hand, the realisation that a crop-based approach, or an approach which treats the country as a single unit, would not address the major issue for agricultural development in different location-specific conditions, watershed management (or alternative drainage, flood control and conjunctive uses of water of different sources, or again, a more appropriate management of hill and forest-based agriculture) are alternative regimes, each having a different investment and policy support strategy.

There are a number of successful watershed management experiences like Sukhornajri, near Kalka and Pani-Panchayats (water collectives) at Ralegaon in Maharashtra, where the basic problems of food and fuelwood requirements of poor rural communities have been largely solved by water harvesting.

It is being suggested that in many rural or agricultural situations in our country, we require community participation interfaced with institutional support at the level of, say, ‘watershed’ land and water managements in difficult ecological regimes to develop the slender resource base of the areas. The replication of successes like Sukhornajri would be for the better.

Studies to develop a baseline data for better understanding of the existing and emerging situations need to be undertaken. Recycling of water and water conservation will be a critical component of our daily lives in the new millennium. As far as possible, the technologies should be indigenously developed so as to make them socially acceptable and economically viable.