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DEVELOPMENT:
RAIN HARVESTING
How
Green Is My Village
A
unique build-your-own-dam scheme helps transform one of the driest regions
in the country into an oasis of plenty
By
Uday Mahurkar
 |
| The
10,000 Check Dams Have Raised The Water Table In Saurashtra |
It's
seen as the beginning of a green revolution in a land that was reeling
under a severe drought just two months ago. But unlike in Punjab, it isn't
a giant Bhakra Nangal dam that is ushering in the change in Gujarat's
Saurashtra region but a water harvesting scheme put together by the people
themselves in a unique partnership with the state Government.
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DRAMATIC
RECOVERY
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| VANKIA
(Jamnagar): Received just 32 cm of rain against the normal 50
cm but its 1,500 wells are full, thanks to the 18 check dams.
PARAPIPALIA
(Rajkot): Nine dams helped the first rains to revive all the
village handpumps.
MUDILA
(Jamnagar): Villagers had to buy water for constructing the
five dams. Now all 100 wells in the village are full.
MUNJKA
(Rajkot): Never saw a good harvest in years. But the 11 dams
have now made that possible by raising the water table.
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The Saurashtra
region doesn't have a single perennial river. Its hard, rocky surface
doesn't allow rain water to percolate easily. In the absence of a rain-harvesting
system, the water swiftly ran off into the sea. Also, the rampant use
of power-operated borewells had caused the water table to sink deeper.
So the region was an easy victim of the drought. Crops withered and livestock
perished as helpless villagers watched.
But the
drought was an excellent teacher. The villagers realised the perils of
overexploitation of ground water without having a recharging system in
place. The Government did its own bit to raise awareness about water conservation
by taking out "jalyatras" in different parts of the state.
The effort
has paid off. In a span of just five months, people of more than 2,000
villages in the six districts that comprise Saurashtra have built 10,000
check dams, responding to the Gujarat Government's "Build Your Own
Check Dam" (BYOD) scheme. Under the project, the Government bears
60 per cent of the total cost of the dam while the villagers shoulder
the remaining through voluntary labour.
As sporadic
rains lashed the region in July, the villagers began to taste the fruits
of their labour. Despite a poor monsoon so far, nearly 7,000 of these
check dams have overflowed at least once, instantly raising the water
table in the entire region and ensuring that the debilitating drought
does not hit again.
Vankia village
in Jamnagar district was one of the worst affected. Its 2,000-odd residents
survived on 40,000 litres of drinking water supplied daily by tankers.
Today, Vankia has made a dramatic turnaround, thanks to the 18 check dams
built by villagers on the rivulets and tributaries running into the Und
river. The villagers worked day and night in the blistering summer heat
to construct a solution to their problem. Patel and Rajput and Harijan
and Muslim worked side by side, burying caste prejudices under the debris.
The work started in April, and by June the check dams were ready. The
cost: just Rs 42 lakh. When the monsoons came in July, the dams overflowed
even though the area received less than 15 cm of rainfall. As the water
collected by the check dams percolated into the ground, the water table
in the area shot up. Says Ashwinbhai Patel, a farmer who organised villagers
from Vankia to avail of the scheme: "We have learnt to tackle the
curse of drought." Bhurabhai Patel, another farmer who worked in
a government-run relief camp during the drought along with other farmers
from Vankia, is ecstatic. "What couldn't be achieved in 50 years
has been achieved in just a few months," he exults.
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