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CARE TODAY
FIGHT
THE DROUGHT
Inspiration
and Perspiration
CARE TODAY
helped residents of Vyar village in Gujarat's drought-prone Kutch district
to build three percolation tanks for harvesting rainwater
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| Proud
Villagers atop the check dam they built |
Vyar,
a small village in Gujarat's Kutch district, is home to two communities—80
families of nomadic Rabaris and 60 households of weaver Vankars. Successive
droughts and over-exploitation of natural resources had destroyed the
village's self-sufficient economy and the inter-dependence between the
two communities, making them turn to the government for drought relief.
Earlier this year, when the drought hit harder than usual—wells were
drying, fodder was unavailable and labour incomes hard to come by-the
villagers approached the local women's federation, the Nakhatrana Mahila
Vikas Sangathan (NMVS), for help. The NMVS in turn approached its district
federation, the Kachchh Mahila Vikas Sangathan (KMVS), which got in touch
with CARE TODAY.
CARE TODAY
lent support to KMVS for building two percolation tanks along Vyar's catchment
area in June with a grant of Rs 1.06 lakh from the "Fight the Drought"
fund. The project aimed at doing more than building structures though.
Its goal was to change the relationship between the community and its
environment by making people feel responsible for their habitat. The first
task before KMVS was to convince people that this was not another government
relief programme; that the villagers would themselves have to decide the
location and dimensions of the structure and the wage rates to be paid.
The villagers formed an 11-member committee (six women and five men, with
representation from both communities) to take decisions relating to the
work. According to Bhachiben Rabari, president of the committee and the
prime mover of the project, "We were quite surprised because this
was not how government relief programmes worked. But the people put their
trust in us and so we performed."
As work progressed,
the committee decided that the long-term good of the village was equally
important. So, every sixth day's wages was contributed to a fund that
would be used to maintain the structures in future. This way the villagers
collected Rs 13,685 for the maintenance fund. Also, individuals were encouraged
to do voluntary labour on two sites. One site was for men and the other
for women. Dhanubai Marwara, who put in the most unpaid work into the
project, proudly points out that the women's site was larger than the
men's.
The voluntary
spirit and prudent spending helped the two structures come up quickly
and at much less than the budgeted cost. So the committee decided to utilise
the remaining money for constructing another percolation tank and a concrete
waste weir along the larger structure. It approached CARE TODAY for permission
for this. We agreed.
Today, the
three percolation tanks line Vyar's main rainwater-catchment area. According
to Gangjibhai Marwara, vice-president of the committee, the structures
are strong as they have been built by the villagers themselves. He expects
that the increased percolation of rainwater in the ground will raise the
productivity of about 20 hectares of grazing land. Additionally, the harvested
water will raise the water table in the region so that in future droughts
will not play havoc with cattle and human lives.
We feel that
the proof of the pudding is in the eating. Only if Vyar's position is
emphatically better than its neighbours in the next cycle of drought would
we consider CARE TODAY's support worthwhile. In this perennially drought-ridden
region, it is unlikely that we will have to wait for long to check that
out.
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