FORRAD’s work related to water in the past 10 years
RAJASTHAN – Ajmer, Jaipur and Nagaur districts
1. Rainwater harvesting around the Sambhar Salt Lake (In partnership with Manthan Sanstha and Prayatna Sansthan)
The creation of a storage capacity of 1.5 billion litres through the restoration/construction of 31 rainwater harvesting structures in 20 villages in a region when the ground water is intensely saline around the Sambhar salt lake in the Ajmer, Jaipur and Nagaur districts of Rajasthan. Each year, at least a billion litres of rainwater gets collected. The reservoirs are being maintained by the respective panchayats with interest in their upkeep being shown by both the district and the state.
2. Water storage for individual households (In partnership with Manthan Sanstha supported by individual donors)
The construction of 206 water storage tanks of 10,000 litres each, were built for extremely marginalised households living in isolated pockets away from water supply. These families belong to the Bagariya, Kalbeliya, Nat, Sansi, Satiyan and Banjara communities. The water source in or near these habitations dries up during the summer and the villages and hamlets are reliant on weekly tanker supplies from the govt or private contractors. These families typically do not have more than a couple of buckets for water storage and are unable to store when the tankers do come.
UTTAR PRADESH – Mahoba district
3. Watershed development in UP Bundelkhand (In partnership with Gramonnati Sansthan)
Watershed development to regenerate 1000 acres of land was done in Uttar Pradesh in the villages of Bilkhi and Tola Swayam. This was a textbook watershed project, undertaken over largely individual farmland and some hillside incorporating the elements of farm-bunding, check-dams, gully plugs, farm ponds and tree plantation. This project was dramatic in its impact with wasteland being transformed to productive farmland in a single year. The work also included the deepening of wells and the repair of hand-pumps within the village.
4. Farm bunding in Dikwaha on 35 acres of land belonging to 35 farmers Subsequent to a meeting with the farmers held on 5 March, 2021, the land on which bunding was to be undertaken, was divided into 2 clusters belonging to 15 farmers each. As work began, the panchayat also showed interest in supporting the expansion of this activity and finally bunding was completed on a total of 110 acres of farmland. The farm owners contributed 10% of the work in the form of shramdaan (voluntary labour). Work in Dikwaha also included the clearing and deepening of 5 wells as part of drought relief measures.
5. Farm bunding in Baniya tala on 28 acres of land belonging to 6 farmers – as work progressed the panchayat took and interest and farm bunding was undertaken on an additional 18 acres reaching a further 6 farmers.
TAMIL NADU – Thiruvallur district
6. The restoration of 39 km of traditional irrigation channels in Tiruvallur district allowing for the use of surface water for irrigation thereby reducing dependence on groundwater and greatly benefitting the small-holder farmers who do not have their own tube-wells. The respective panchayats (12) now take this up as their responsibility.
7. The testing of water quality using indicative field testing kits on 100 sample sites twice a year (dry season and monsoon) across 31 villages and hamlets. The tests were done by a local team and the results shared with the panchayats. This alerted the team and community to the problem of bacterial contamination and enabled us to deal with it. After a period of 10 years – we can now say that people are much more conscious of the water that they use and drink and that the overhead tanks and open wells are in much better condition than when we found them.
8. The cleaning of 60 public overhead tanks, (30,000 – 60,000 litres) and 16 school tanks significantly reducing bacterial contamination in water. The tanks are now maintained by the local panchayat with occasional reminders from the community. The local team after finding bacterial contamination in water has been increasingly successful in motivating the respective panchayats to clean their tanks. Those numbers are not included here.
9. The cleaning, chlorination and covering of 22 open wells that had fallen into disuse with the coming of piped water and were being used as garbage dumps. The primary purpose of the cleaning was to prevent the risk of ground water contamination but many of the wells cleaned are now back in use, particularly when there are extended electricity cuts due to storms etc.
10. 96 farmers were motivated to use the SRI method of rice cultivation over their fields covering a total of 173 acres. SRI uses half the water that the traditional method does.