Drought-free in Maharashtra – Six Small Villages, One Big Lesson

Thapewadi, Phalakewadi and Muthalane villages in Pune, Randulabad villages of Satara, and Satichiwadi and Shelkewadi villages of Ahmednagar are all villages in drought-affected districts of Maharashtra but they are unlike their neighbours.

These six villages are drinking water secure. Water security in this context means many things – that there is enough water, that their supply is regular, that the water is of good quality and that everybody in the community gets equal amounts of water. This didn’t happen by accident. It was a complete effort where the village communities, which were aided by two NGOs, got together, understood the problems and came up with solutions to regulate and ensure year-round water supply.

Thapewadi village: This well has been in use for over 50 years according to the villagers. The water is used for potable use. The well would dry up earlier, but in the last two years in spite of two continuous dry seasons it has not gone dry, the villagers note.

All six villages lie in the rain shadow area of Maharashtra, in particular of the Western Ghats. This means that they are at the back-facing side of the Ghats, which translates into lesser clouds and lower rainfall. Though the villagers were aware of such information, they lacked the organization skills to plan for such situations which affected them year in and out. This is where the NGOs helped – to bring the villagers together, get them to understand the issues that they were faced with and explain how simple scientific concepts combined with their local knowledge could help them. Two years later, these villages have enough water year-round. Now, that’s success!

The first step was for the villagers to map their water resources.

The next step was to answer questions such as how much natural supply of water was available, what are the various uses of this water within the village – for drinking, agriculture, domestic needs, livestock , etc. to understand the demand and given the available supply how quickly would the drinking source dry up . During discussions with the community, the nature and behaviour of groundwater as a common pool resource was emphasized.

Phalkewadi village: Surface water and run off from other activities is collected in tanks like these built next to the main water supply tank. This serves the drinking requirements of the village’s livestock.

Once demand and supply were clear, implementing systems to ensure that the supply didn’t ‘break’ was the third step. The villagers adopted many approaches for this:

Monitoring water year-round – This meant that they would check water levels in different sources periodically. If water was reducing in a well, then water supply to the villagers would be reduced proportionately. This was successfully done in Thapewadi (Pune district).

Choosing the right crops – Some crops require more water than others. Depending on the water usage through the year, the villagers understood how much would be available during the second crop season (rabi) and thus chose the crop accordingly. This was successfully done in Randullabad and Satichiwadi (Ahmednagar district).

Thapewadi village:This tank supplies water to the entire village. The source of water for this tank is from a well constructed by Gram Panchayat. This well was built with Arghyam’s funding.

Redistributing water use based on supply – A shortage of water meant that the villagers would save water for the summer months by re-evaluating how much water would be used for agriculture and other purposes versus for drinking

Installing water meters – Meters were installed in the villager’s homes. This helped them become conscious about their domestic water usage. Though currently the flat fee tariff is applied the prospect of volumetric tariff made sure that people reduced the wastage of domestic water. This was successfully implemented in Phalakewadi (Pune district).

The most notable part of all these initiatives is that the villagers collectively agreed on these initiatives and understood how they would benefit from them.

Sharada Ghavani from Thapewadi says,The villagers had a host of local wisdom – information on the direction of the winds at certain times of the year, levels of moisture in the soil, areas where flooding happened regularly and so on. The NGOs helped them combine scientific information, especially about weather, with this local knowledge to help prepare them better against drought. The automated weather stations set up in Muthalane and Randulabad are great examples.

Muthalane village: This water source is located on a private land belonging to Ranjit Dethe. The water availability here is a direct result of the watershed management work done in the village. This is due to the PGWM work done in the village by ACWADAM.

The communities in these villages understood the rainfall patters better, budgeted their water use accordingly and also chose crops smartly. Moreover they used the humidity and soil moisture readings to apply required amount of water, pesticides and fertilizers.

The two NGOs involved – Watershed Organisation Trust (WOTR) and Advanced Center for Water Resources Development and Management (ACWADAM) – have different focus areas. WOTR’s approach to water security was by implementing large-scale watershed programmes and focus on water supply augmentation. Watersheds are areas within which water drains into a stream, lake, pond or a river. ACWADAM’s strategy was to improve supply based on understanding underground rock structures and water flow patterns within them. Arghyam, a public charitable foundation working in the drinking water and sanitation sector funded these two NGOs in their efforts.

Satichiwadi village: A peep into the main well in Satichiwadi. The level is dipping this season (April 2013). The villagers have reached a common decision to economise on their water use by enforcing sanctions by public consent over its use. Such regulatory mechanisms implemented by the people themselves has been very effective in achieving drinking water security and desirable outcomes of interventions made by Arghyam and WOTR.

The primary reason this initiative succeeded was because of the involvement of the villagers. There was a sense of community and kinship that helped them take decisions together and in a manner that benefitted them all. Leaders have evolved within the community and thanks to the revival and construction of piped water supply, women have more time to be actively involved in the decision-making process as well.

This effort can easily be replicated in other parts of India. All it takes is a combination of general awareness, local knowledge, scientific information and most importantly, community level action.

For further information on this story, please write to Ayan Biswas, Arghyam at ayan@arghyam.org.