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1. A
rapid survey of the area around Gulbarga answers the question why
the project focused on Watersheds. Undulating lands, well-defined
water catchment areas with individual water outlets merging
together as the water rushes towards larger streams define the
topography. We also find that in most of the mini-watersheds
(especially those far away from main roads) not only is water a
scarce and mismanaged resource but over-all degradation is a
common feature. The watershed is degraded not only in terms of
land and soils but
as much in terms of people and their
skills and institutions (social, political, credit, health and
energy) - which together should form the basis of a self-reliant
community.2. THE
'PARTICIPATION' IN PIDOW :When
it was decided to call the project PIDOW, priority was given to Participation of
the people.
Initially the staff interpreted this as motivation and
consequently organised village gatherings and melas which were
addressed by prominent local speakers and staff who made efforts
to raise the levels of interest and establish a rapport
with the villagers. The next step was to organise small but
concrete actions which
provided opportunities for people to plan and work together (shramdaan to repair roads,
desilt wells, etc.). But participation is much more. It
calls for assisting the
people to design and build up local institutions (functional,
etc.) with appropriate systems to
manage the resources of a Watershed.
We have models for some of these functional institutions
(sericulture societies,
milk societies). Some of them can be integrated (when viable) with
Apex institutions that
cover large areas like Milk Societies into Milk Unions and Cooperatives
into Apex Banks. A management model and an infrastructure exists for these functional
institutions which other types of institutions do not enjoy. We
surely do not have a model
for an Apex organisation to manage a watershed nor
even a model for appropriate functional institutions which are
required to achieve
the objective of over-all development of the community in a
watershed. It
is not enough, therefore, to motivate and organise the community
to express feelings of
enthusiasm for the proposed programmes : viable institutions
managed by the people
need to be developed. This immediately "imposes" certain
restrictions on the size of
the watershed where the programme is undertaken.
The Watershed cannot
be too large.
Its size must depend on the "capacity" of the
people and their institutions to manage the operations required
(though this "capacity"
in terms of skills, knowledge, and resources will, hopefully,
increase as a result of
PIDOW's intervention). The existing "area definitions"
of a watershed as guiding
norms are of little help. For example the PWD (Irrigation Department) describes
the watershed in terms of river basins. The area extends over
thousands of hectares which comprises the entire catchment area of
a major river. Such an area concept cannot serve as the basis of
PIDOW's choice of a watershed. It is too
large to achieve the major objective of participation. The
practice of the Maharajas
and local rulers provides a useful example. They concentrated on
minor basins and tanks
which were administered by the village or panchayat. This
is one reason why
during exposure trips the PIDOW staff should visit areas where the
people have developed their
own institutions to manage a programme or absorbed management
patterns which are appropriate (like that of a milk society). They
should not visit only large
Government managed programmes which are high in technology
and expertise but have a management pattern too costly and
elaborate to be adopted
and managed by the people.
The Watershed cannot
be too small either.
If it is, then the programme will be largely
symbolic in nature. The functional institutions will be too small
to achieve economic
viability and too weak to exert pressure, the area perhaps, too
inadequate to plan for
the major needs of energy, pasture and forestry. How large,
therefore, should the
watershed be? One can be allowed to hazard a guess at this stage
at the cost of inviting
criticism of being arbitrary. A
watershed covering 600 to 800
acres with 80 to 100 farming families would be a possible start
for PIDOW.
(This estimate is also conditioned by the present strength and
skills of the PIDOW
staff and its involvement over the entire project area apart from
its programme in the
mini- watershed.) From
participation flows another essential feature of watershed
management
DECENTRALISATION
(1) . The watershed
programmes must be planned and managed
by local groups and coordinated at the watershed level. Unless
these institutional
demands of "decentralisation" are properly understood
and fulfilled from the
start, the project will take on features of the Government's IRDP
and other Departmental
programmes which are some of the basic causes of its failures. For example, a genuinely
decentralised programme will be
based on
village groups, especially
groups of people below the poverty line who are to benefit from
the IRD programme. By
"being based" we mean -
-
efforts will be made to establish a
functional group so that it
runsaccording to certain rules and regulations.
-
the choice of
"beneficiaries" will be made by the group.
-
the disbursement and
utilisation of funds will be monitored by orthrough the group.
-
the programmes will be
undertaken not under theDepartment'spressure to achieve targets
but according to
the group's capacity toabsorb and manage such programmes.
3. THE INTEGRATION IN PIDOW :
One of the major
bottlenecks in IRD programmes has been the lack of integration both at management levels and
in the content of various programmes. For example agro-forestry
or agro-horticulture programmes under IRDP are planned without analysing the relation of
trees to a particular watershed need for soil stabilisation, for fuel, for fodder, for
fertiliser, or for that matter for flowers - the last could form the basis of a very
profitable apiculture programme especially if the trees flower
between February and June when there is hardly any other honey
source. Astra Oles
(smokeless, fuel-efficient ovens) are installed to meet targets
under area programmes
(Block), without the staff and people understanding that they are required because the
watershed's fuel resources are scarce and what is scarce has to be effectively used. Often
cows are distributed along the milk route with little attention
paid to the capacity of the watershed to support them with fodder,
water, or the skills required
to manage them. If these cows happen to be distributed
along the milk route, it is a bonus, if not, official pressure on
the Union to extend its
route will be met by arguments of "non-viability".
Links, therefore, are required to make each programme
successful and sustaining; but
these links must be established at the watershed level.
Integration therefore requires decentralisation. Links will not emerge if programmes are
sanctioned and implemented
at District and Block levels which are subject to various outside pressures like politics,
finance and financial year ends over which the local group has
no control. Without links at the local level these programmes will
need to be implemented
and sustained by action or pressures from outside. For how long,
for example, will we
continue to motivate veterinary camps and organise the Government
Departments to run them? When will the local groups realise the essential features and links
involved to run a dairy programme and establish these features
and these links in a management model which they understand and
can maintain? Integration
at the watershed level, through appropriate institutions
of the people is an
essential feature of PIDOW's Watershed Management Model.
The Department of Soil and Water Conservation concentrates on
gully plugs, bunds, terraces
and contours mainly along the upper reaches; they call this
watershed management. In PIDOW this
programme could be described as "a plan to manage
soil and water in a shed"
and not "Watershed
Management"
which is more
comprehensive.
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