'Traditional water management systems key to water security'

Describe your work in Kachchh and Bhuj region I focus on land and water resources management. Kachchh is an arid region. Every morning brings with it the uncertainty of water. Rainfall is irregular and so the problems of the area are compounded by drought. Large-scale deep boring has led to the depletion of ground water resources.  Interviewee:  Yogesh Jadeja

Drought of equity

More funds for watershed programmes

Rainfed and drought prone regions in the country are likely to see a boost in water conservation schemes. Finance Minister P Chidambaram has increased the allocation for the Integrated Watershed Management Programme (IWMP) from Rs 3,050 crore in 2012-13 to Rs 5,387 crore. While presenting the Budget, Chidambaram said that watershed management is crucial to improve productivity of land and water use.

Innovative administrator

I first met R Gopalakrishnan when he was the district collector of Jhabua in Madhya Pradesh. This was in the 1980s when India was in the throes of a crippling drought. Jhabua looked like a moonscape—nothing but arid and thirsty land and desperate people. Anil Agarwal had gone there for a meeting of tribal groups, fighting for their rights over forestland. I had accompanied him.

Six sins that make drought invincible

It’s drought time again. Nothing new in this announcement. Each year, first we have crippling droughts between December and June, and then devastating floods in the next few months. It’s a cycle of despair, which is more or less predictable. But this is not an inevitable cycle of nature we must live with.

Half-way to autonomy

The tiny 16-house village of Kuppaner in Maharashtra’s Gadchiroli district is bustling with activity. A few days ago, its gram sabha started felling bamboo in areas where it has community forest rights (CFR). Kuppaner is among the 400 villages in the district that have been granted CFR under the Forest Rights Act.

Letters - May 15, 2012

Freshwater economics

Paying farmers for ecological services

MGNREGA 2.0 has the potential but its realisation needs course correction Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee programme is being refurbished as MGNREGA 2.0. Within two months, the country will have a rural employment programme that will pay people for the work they usually do for sustenance.

Hiware Bazar - A village with 54 millionaires

Impotent plan?

Imampur village is in Nagar taluka of Maharashtra's Ahmednagar district, a rain shadow area. For more than two years now, the agriculture department has been implementing a watershed project here, using egs money. But when dte visited Imampur, it found out that while an entire hillock was covered with continuous contour trenches (ccts ), there was no tree plantation. Why?