AT BHUJPUR, 32 km from the coastal town of Mandvi in Kutch,
the Nagmati river is only a bone-dry riverbed with a small, out
of place check-dam. But buried in the sand lie the village's life-
support systems - a dyke and 4 tubewells that quietly
recharge the underground aquifer. Over 200 such innovative
rainwater harvesters have been constructed in Gujarat's and
Kutch district, under technical guidance from Vivekanand
Research and Training Institute (VRTI), an NGo headquartered
in Mandvi (Down To Earth, Vol 2, No 8).
Kutch: the tourism department's incessant, hyped image-
making has ingrained in our minds an image of colourful men
and women in ethnic attire. In reality, straggly bushes struggle
to survive here and dust creeps in everywhere. An erratic, idiosyncratic rainfall pattern has turned India's 2nd-largest district
into a virtual desert: you can expect anything between 3 mm of
rain in a whole year, or a deluge of 450 mm in a single day.
Kutch's 97 rivers are ephemeral - brimming today, gone
tomorrow. The only source of fresh water lies underground.
Over the years, as the demand for it has grown, withdrawal has
far exceeded recharge.
The consequences have been disastrous. Closer to the
coastline, sea water ingressed rapidly into the aquifers. With
no water, many villagers just fled. Elsewhere, desperate farm-
ers sank borewells more than 150 m deep in a futile search for
water.
In 1989, following discussions with farmers in Rayan vil-
lage, 25 km from Mandvi, the VRTI staff, along with the people,
decided to venture into rainwater harvesting. Eighteen check-
dams were built on the Rukmavati river, and its numerous
tributaries.
Dramatic turnaround
The impounded water increased percolation through the soil
and boosted aquifer recharge. Says Jayanti Patel, a farmer in
nearby Don village, "Because of Rayan's dams, even our wells
now have water." In addition, water which ran waste into the
sea became available for lift irrigation. At Ratadiya, Manjib,hai
Prem Patel, a farmer who owns 2.34 ha of land near a village
with 4 dams, installed a pump 3 yea Irs ago to i water. He now
exuberates, "Earlier, if it did not rain, I'd lose everything.
Now,I'm sure of 2 crops annually."
But mere check-dams were n6t enough. Explains K C B
Raju, technical director, VRTI, "Once a check-dam is full, water
from the next rain will run waste. The percolation rate had to
be increased to maximise harvestini"
The "recharging tubewell" tRT Well) was the VRTI'S ingenious answer. It is a slotted Pvc pipe 20 cm in diameter, directly feeding the aquifer with surface 'water. Floodwater sediments are filtered out by a 6m x 6m x 6m filter bed of gravel,
sand and pebble. An additional barrier of coir rope wound
around the pipe ensures that only clean water enters the
aquifer.
'The VRT1 then broke fresh ground with the subsurface
dyke. Essentially a groundwater dam, it harvests subsurface, or
base flow-water from a riverbed's permeable sand. A trench is
dug in the riverbed till it touches the impervious rock layer,
using a plastic sheet placed on the downstream side to dam the
base flow. RT wells are dug in front of this "dam" to trap the
water and lead it into the aquifer. The trench, along with the
plastic-sheet dyke and the RT Wells, is then filled up.
At Bhujpur, a 10.5 m subsurface dyke and 4 1ZT wells, 67 m
deep have worked wonders. Says an incredulous Dewan
Gadvi, who owns a 1-ha plot, "Water in our well rose by 10 m!
And it's been the same story up to 1- 1.5 km on either side of
the dam."
Some more equal...
Gadvi feels that the water quality has improved. Concurs
Bhimjibhai Patel, a farmer owning 20 ha of land in
Gandhigram village, "The water is definitely better now.
Earlier, it used to taste like seawater." The viz,n's regular water
Manjibhai watering his fields by lift irrigation
quality tests in all its 60 RT Wells corroborate this. At Bhujpur
the level of Total Dissolved Solids (TDS) dropped from'
1,250 mg/l to 750 mg/l. Raju explains that the influx of thousands of cubic metres of harvested rainwater, with a TDS Of
about 100 mg/l, improves the quality of the groundwater.
The groundwater in this region normally has a TDS of about
1,500 mg/l. The land has paid back rich dividends.
Unfortunately, in some cases, it appears that the rich alone
are getting richer. Ram Murji Gadvi of Ratadiya, who owns
0.75 ha of land, cannot afford Rs 10,000 for a pump. He thus
buys water from any of the 19 pump owners, paying Rs 200
per 0.4 ha of land irrigated every season.
According to Tulsi Gajara, managing trustee, VRTI, land is
available in plenty in the Kutch, which is why the number of
landless people is very low. Even their lot is improving, says
Gajara, since "they benefit because they get more opportunities for labour, once agriculture expands".
But the inherent inequalities are compounded by a lack of
community Organisation. Rather, there is a tendency to turn to
the VRTI to wave its magic wand and cure all ills. The people's
involvement in the project remains restricted to contributing
25 per cent of the total cost of construction, which
ranges from Rs 15,000 to Rs 12 lakhs for a check-dam, NaI,
Rs 7-21 lakhs for a subsurface dyke and around Rs I
lakh for an RT well.
The VRTI has feebly attempted motivating the people to form a Gram Vikas Mandal (village development
council) at Ratadiya and Gandhigram. But despite the
existence of the 3-year-old, 21-member Mandal in
Ratadiya, which has a population of 350, waste weirs in
3 of the check-dams lie broken and in dire need of repairs. Patel tells a VRTI staff member, "Get this repaired
quickly. We are willing to come and work on it, but you
have to get it done because we cannot afford it.
Gajara acknowledges that there have been lapses on
their part. "We didn't give much importance to community participation earlier. But we are working on it
" In fact, dependence cannot be washed clean with
now.
rainwater, and this fact can kill the best initiative.
