Neha Sakhuja / CSE |
The last five years
have been tough on 55-year old Saraswati Devi. Her two sons have left
their village to work as construction workers in Jabalpur, Madhya Pradesh
(mp). The family’s one hectare patch in
Ragauli Bhatpura gram panchayat in Uttar Pradesh’s (up)
Banda district has been mortgaged. The money barely helps Saraswati
tide over a drought that’s ravaging Banda and 12 other contiguous
district in up and mp
for the last five years.
Quite ironical because
the region—historically known as Bundelkhand—has a rich history of
water harvesting.
The current spell is the longest and most severe in the region’s
recorded history. Government records show that Bundelkhand had only 12
years of drought in the 19th and 20th centuries. But the arid spell has
already lasted five years this century.
Crop failure and debt has driven more than 400 farmers to commit suicide
in the seven districts that make up the up part
of Bundelkhand. Starvation deaths have also being reported. Acting on
these, the up government declared Banda
drought-hit (more than half of the crop affected) in December 2006.
Chitrakoot, Mahoba and Hamirpur districts were also declared drought-hit.
But, says an official of the state’s information department, these
districts were declared ‘drought-hit’ on the basis of deficient
rainfall. According to official data, annual rainfall in the up
part of Bundelkhand was between 500 mm-700 mm in 2004-2005, against the
state average of 1,000 mm. “We have not made any assessment of the crop
loss,” the information department official says. But he also speculates
that “more than 50 per cent of the crop has been affected because of
reduction in monsoon months and days.”
Panchayat Adhyan Sandharv Kendra, an ngo working
in Bundelkhand, puts the losses due to crop failure in the up
part of the region at Rs 8,000 crore in 2006. Another estimate by up’s
disaster management department, says that the drought claimed more than Rs
7,500 crore worth of crop, livestock and property in 2002. The department
reckons that losses amounted to Rs 7,200 crore in 2004. They are likely to
be more this year as more districts have come under the grip of the
drought.
Debt trap
Seventy-five per cent of the people in Bundelkhand depend on agriculture
and more than 80 per cent of them are small and marginal farmers. But  agriculture
has virtually come to a halt. “Locked houses are a common sight in
Budelkhand, ” says Bhagwat Prasad, director, Akhil Bharatiya Samaj Seva
Sanasthan (abss), an ngo that
works in the region. Vidya Dham Trust, another ngo working
in the region, has come out with a study which notes that 33 of the 200
villages in Narayani block of Banda district are deserted. “Every sixth
village in the block is deserted,” says Vidya Dham’s secretary Raja
Bhaiya.
In Ragauli Bhatpura, at least one male member from each of the 500
families has migrated to cities such as Allahabad, Gwalior, Agra and Delhi
for livelihood. “But these migrants do not earn enough to support the
elderly back home,” says Raja Bhaiya. Saraswati Devi has been surviving
on two loans: one amounting to Rs 25,000 from a public sector bank and
another Rs 15,000 from a local moneylender. The latter charges an interest
rate as high as 25 per cent per annum. “If the coming monsoon fails, we
will not survive the debt trap,” says Sarawati Devi.
Dry wells
Saraswati Devi’s village has four tube wells. These have dried up in the
last one year. The water table has plummeted to as low as 450 feet and in
some places even lower than that. “We got water at 100 feet even two
years back,” says Raja Bhaiya.
 All
this is very ironical because Bundelkhand has a rich history of tanks and
other traditional water harvesting structures. In fact, even now many
people in the region depend on tanks for irrigation. But experts say that
government involvement in maintenance of tanks and other rainwater
harvesting structure has eroded the sense of community ownership.
Studies conducted by ngos and other agencies
indicate that in the last 20 years, canals and tube wells have become the
predominant sources of irrigation in Bundelkhand. “Most of the
traditional structures have fallen into disrepair or have completely been
destroyed,” according to a study by the New Delhi-based ngo,
Development Alternatives, ‘Developing water sustaining livelihoods’.
A study on traditional and modern water resources systems conducted across
60 villages in the up part of Bundelkhand
reveals that more than 54 per cent of wells are in unserviceable condition
and more than 50 per cent of ponds have dried up (see table: Dry
repositories). The study was conducted by Church’s Auxiliary for
Social Action (casa) and Jan Kendrit Vikas
Manch—a network of ngos in Bundelkhand.
“Indiscriminate felling of trees, over exploitation of groundwater,
excessive chemical fertiliser use, soil erosion, low groundwater table and
scanty rainfall contribute to the drought situation in Bundelkhand,” the
study says.
The number of open wells (which recharge groundwater) have increased but
only marginally. In Jalaun district in up, for
example, they increased from 2,134 in 1995 to only 2,153 (an increase of
only 0.89 per cent) in 2004. “The slow rate of increase in the number of
open wells seriously affects water supply to the rural population,”
notes another study by the ngo Parmarth Samaj
Sevi Santhan. The study attributes the region’s water scarcity to the
recent tilt towards water intensive crops, change in tillage practices and
excessive use of fertiliser in agriculture. In the last 20 years, source
of irrigation in the district has changed from open wells and ponds to
tubewells. “Government subsidies for installing hand pumps to exploit
groundwater has compounded matters,” says Sanjay Singh, secretary of the
ngo.
A lost opportunity
Eight of the 13 districts in Bundelkhand are covered under the National
Rural Employment Guarantee Act (nrega), 2005.  With
its provisions of reviving traditional water harvesting structures, the
act could have been the right instrument to correct matters in
Bundelkhand. But an analysis of works initiated under nrega
reveals that only 22 per cent pertain to water conservation, around 24 per
cent of works are for renovating water bodies and 18 per cent of the works
relate to drought proofing. About 30 per cent of the projects pertain to
construction of road. Rs 100 crore has been allotted for nrega
work in the eight districts. But around 40 per cent of that goes to road
construction (see graph: NREGA big on roads).
Six of the seven districts that constitute the up part
of Bundelkhand are covered under nrega. But
even here, water conservation does not get much priority and a large
number of projects remain incomplete. In the acute drought-affected
district of Banda, for example, only 49 of the 923 nrega
projects pertain to water conservation, while 201 are road construction
projects. Out of the 49 water conservation works only five have been
completed.
 Things
are no better in Chitrakoot. Out of 701 projects initiated under nrega,
only 18 pertain to water conservation, while there are 157 road
construction projects. J P Singh, Chitrakoot’s district development
officer admits that 375 nrega projects have not
been completed in the district. For example, repairing and desilting of
Mancharia talab (pond) in Jaganathapuram gram panchayat has
been stopped because of ‘lack of funds’.
Shortage of funds have also held up another pond digging project in
adjoining Tekeria gram panchayat. Rs 7.63 lakh had been sanctioned
for the project and the first installment provided by the block
development officer of Manikpur in February 2007. But state government
officials say that subsequent installments were put on hold because of the
recent up assembly elections. More than Rs 2.6
crore has been sanctioned under nrega in the
Manikpur block of Chitrakoot, says an official supervising the
implementation of the project in the block. “But more than 50 per cent
of them relate to road construction,” he says.
Emulating the neighbour
“nrega is implemented without any vision in
Uttar Pradesh,” says Arundhati Dhuru, adviser, Supreme Court’s right
to food campaign for the state. Things are as bad in neighbouring mp.
Two Bundelkhand districts in this state are covered under nrega.
But works here do not conform to local requirements. In Chattarpur
district, out of 3,422 works initiated under, only 467 are related to
water conservation and 609 works are linked to drought proofing while 785
works relating to rural road construction have been taken up. In Tikamgarh
district, out of 12,663 works initiated, 461 are linked to water
conservation, and 609 pertain to drought proofing.
But there is some hope. The Bhasonda gram panchayat in Chitrakoot
district has been waiting eagerly for the monsoon to set in. Digging and
widening of two ponds—Debi talab and Thwela—have been finished
under nrega. If the monsoon sets in on time, it
would serve close to 5,000 people.
Ponds like this can solve Bundelkhand’s problems. Parmarth’s study on
traditional water resources noted that Jalaun’s water problems can be
solved if only 3 per cent of the district’s rainwater harvesting
potential is tapped. Given nrega’s focus on
water conservation, this is highly attainable and drought completely
avoidable.
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