Technology MattersCommunity Radio, a toolfor Development 26

Community in ActionReviving supply channel of Kochadai tank 9

Women in water bodies development

8

Practitioner’s Diary

MattersDevelopment March 2009

Ensuring Food Security Vayalagam Experience in Villur

MattersDevelopment Vol. III Issue 3 March 2009

Centre for Development CommunicationDHAN Foundation18, Pillaiyar Koil Street, S.S. Colony

Madurai - 625 016. Tamil Nadu, INDIA

Tel.: +91-452-4353983, 2610794, 2610805

Email: dhanfoundation_tn@airtelmail.in

Website: http://www.dhan.org

From the Editors’ Desk

Contents

1. Ensuring Food Security: Vayalagam Experience in Villur 1

2. Women in water bodies development 8

3. Reviving supply channel of Kochadai tank 9

4. Tank Based Watershed Development 13

5. DHAN in Fifth World Water Forum 18

6. Celebrating Vayalagam Movement 20

7. Social mapping 21

8. Community Radio, a tool for Development 26

9. The Advanced Centre for Enabling Disaster Risk Reduction (ACEDRR) 29

There is a saying in surrounding villages, “Vaigai padugai poikkum anaal Villur padugai poikathu”, which means, fields around river Vaigai may go dry but fields around Villur may not go dry. Villur is green all over the year; one or the other crop is grown. No part of the field is left fallow in any season.

Dear Readers!

In this March issue, the feature story is about how Vayalagam

programme of DHAN Foundation work for augmenting food

security of the small and marginal farmers by securing water

availability, improving crop water use efficiency and increasing the

amount of rain water harvest. Food security refers to the availability

of food and one's access to it. March is a special month for our

Vayalagam team as they celebrate their Vayalagam movement day on

7th of this month. And March 8th is women's day. So this issue carries

more Vayalagam related articles. Our colleague Vellaiyappan writes

about women participation on water bodies' development. Devika

narrates her experience during revival of Kochadai supply channel.

N. Venkatesan details Tank Based Watershed Development: Lessons

learnt from Grassroots Participatory Impact Evaluation.

A.Gurunathan and Er. R.Venkatasamy share their experience in fifth

World Water Forum held at Istanbul, Turkey. N. Venkatesan narrates

the way the Vayalagam Movement day was celebrated. PDM 8 batch

students of Tata-Dhan Academy tell about Social Mapping.

Muthukumarasamy delights in writing how Community Radio in

Kottampatti is on the way to develop grassroot people.

We look for your contributions and suggestions to improve the magazine.

Happy Reading !

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Feature: MDGs in Practice

*K. Amina Bibi, Project Executive, Centre for Development Communication, DHAN Foundation, Madurai

Ensuring Food Security:

Vayalagam Experiences in VillurK. Amina Bibi*

Food security

The World Food Summit of1996 defined food security

as existing “when all people at alltimes have access to sufficient, safe,nutritious food to maintain a healthyand active life”. Food security is builton three pillars – food availability,accessibility and use. Agricultureremains the largest employmentsector in most developing countries.Right to food is a basic right for alland is an integral part of the right tolife enshrined in the IndianConstitution as well as the UniversalDeclaration of Human Rights.Vayalagam programme of DHANFoundation work for augmentingfood security of the small andmarginal farmers by securing wateravailability, improving crop water useefficiency and increasing the amountof rain water harvest. Food securityrefers to the availability of food andone’s access to it.

Food security is possible by threemeans. First, food availability isachieved when sufficient quantitiesof food are consistently available toall individuals. Such food can besupplied through householdproduction, other domestic output,commercial imports, or foodassistance. Second, food access isensured when households and allindividuals within them have adequateresources to obtain appropriatefoods for a nutritious diet. Access

depends on income available to thehousehold, on the distribution ofincome within the household, and onthe price of food. Third, foodutilization is the proper biologicaluse of food, requiring a dietproviding sufficient energy andessential nutrients, potable water, andadequate sanitation. Effective foodutilization depends in large measureon knowledge within the householdof food storage and processingtechniques, basic principles ofnutrition and proper child care, andillness management.

At community level, foodsecurity is essentially a matter ofaccess to food. Sustainable progressin poverty reduction is critical toimprove access to food. Foodsecurity is therefore closely linkedto the economic and social health ofa nation, society and individual. A

household is considered food securewhen its occupants do not live inhunger or fear of starvation. Whenpoor households struggle to earnbread, Vayalagam gives loans forconsumption and food producingactivities to enhance food securitythrough encouraging livelihoodactivities. According to the WorldResources Institute, global per capitafood production has been increasingsubstantially for the past severaldecades.

Any disruption to farm suppliesmay precipitate a uniquely urbanfood crisis in a relatively short time.People’s organization formed helpsthe farmers to get farm inputs andmarketing their produces throughcollective trading. The ongoing globalcredit crisis has affected farmcredits, despite a boom in commodityprices. Food security is a complex

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topic, standing at the intersection ofmany disciplines. In developingcountries, often 70 per cent or moreof the population lives in rural areas.In that context, agriculturaldevelopment among smallholderfarmers and landless people providesa livelihood for people allowing themthe opportunity to stay in theircommunities. In many areas of theworld, land ownership is notavailable, thus, people who want orneed to farm to make a living havelittle incentive to improve the land.

It is an ancient tank, deep in therural hinterland of Madurai districtin Tamil Nadu. A state highwaypasses on one side of the tank bund.“Earlier water would overflow fromthe tank onto the road and would getwasted. In the village, the rainfedfarmers owning less than 1.5 acreland would have to buy water fromrich well-owners for their lands”,says S. Sethuraman, pointing to thehighway and the lands sloping offbelow it. “Now, in the two years thatDHAN Foundation has been helpingus renovate this Villur tank, weactually have surplus during therains”, he says.

DHAN Foundation organisedVillur village farmers and landless

people to form their Vayalagam. S.Sethuraman is the Vayalagampresident. He is a science graduateand farmer who can conversefluently in English. He wasinstrumental in the building of ahigher secondary school in hisvillage. He motivated the VayalagamAssociation to clean the three of the‘feeder channels’ of the Villur tank.The channels were overgrown withweeds, silted up and to top it wasencroached by a few farmers for thelast 30-40 years!

The Vayalagam leaders got holdof official land records from thegovernment Revenue office, and gotthe entire area surveyed as per therecords. With the support fromDHAN Foundation they exertedcontinuous pressure on the twofarmers who had encroached on thefeeder canal and convinced them togive up the encroached land whichthey had been using for three andmore decades.

When asked how they managedto evict such long-term encroachers,Sethuraman says they could manageto do so only because theyapproached the encroachers as acollective association and not asindividuals.

The work on the feeder channelswas supported by Oxfam-Novib asa humanitarian support during thefloods in that area. The villagerscontributed Rs.15,000 worth ofvoluntary labour during the time thiswork was done. The bund formationaround the tank was taken throughthe Government of India’s Food forWork program. Here they contributedRs.20,000 to augment the worksbeing done during this period. Aftera discussion with all the membersthe contribution from the memberstowards the work was fixed atRs.300 per acre of land in thecommand area. This wasunanimously agreed upon by all themembers and the contributions werecollected. The tractor owners alsocontributed some amount as theyalso benefitted by getting workthrough the Vayalagam fortransporting the silt excavated fromthe tank and using it for applicationon the lands. The Vayalagam wantedto take up the work of repairing thesluices which had fallen into disuse.

The command area that could becultivated changed significantly from25 acres to over 100 acres due tothe availability of the water in the tankafter all this work was taken up.Sethuraman’s 3.6 acres gave anyield of over 40 bags (one bag is equalto 75 kilos) of paddy, up from the30 bags he managed to get two yearsago when the tank did not haveenough water.

Villur big tank

Villur Big tank is under the controlof the Public Works Department. Itwas like the mother tank whosesurplus fed five other tanks in thevillage. Due to prolonged neglect andlack of even minimum maintenanceof this tank it reached a stage where

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the tank got filled only to ¼th or ½of its capacity. Even during periodsof heavy rainfall in good monsoonsit never got filled. This led to asituation of the lands in thecommand area to be similar torainfed lands. The only crop raisedwas rice. The first 80 days of thecrop utilized the rainwater frommonsoon and residual moisture fromground. The last 20 – 30 days thecrop would suffer drought leadingto crop failure. Only those who hadwells and pump sets in their landcould save their crops by using thewell water.

Four farmers who wanted tochange the situation met with theDHAN field teams and appraisedthem of the situation in their tank.The field team shared about DHAN’sapproach and the need for thecommunity to contribute 25% of thecost if they wanted to undertake thework. The villagers were reluctantto do so. But these four farmers putin a lot of efforts to convince themto come forward to contributemoney and finally collectedRs.25,000 almost rupee by rupeefrom them. They formed ParivallalVayalagam association in the village.The amount was deposited in thegroup account and requested DHANFoundation in 2004 to take up tankrenovation activity.

Ambika said in those days Villurpeople faced more problems due totheft. There were several incidentsof theft of rice, cotton, goats andeven groceries due to the poverty andhunger as a result of the waterscarcity. It was in this situation thatSethuraman convinced people that“If we could fill the tank with water,the stomach would get filledautomatically and there will be noneed to steal.” It was after a lot of

persuasion and discussionthat the villagers cameforward to contribute a smallamount and labour work inthe tank. After the work hasbeen completed the oftenheard comment about thisvillage is “Even if the Vagairiver is dry the fields aroundVillur will not go dry. Thefields are green throughoutthe year with some crop onthe other in the fields”

In 2004, renovation workwas taken up in the Villur Bigtank. The supply channelwas cleaned for a distance offive kilometers. Clearingweeds and encroachment were themain activities done for this tank.When the monsoons began after thiswork, there was no breaching in anypart of the tank bunds. The cropcultivation became possible in theentire 350 acres of command areawhere previously cultivation couldbe done only in 30 acres. On seeingthe impact of the work done in thetank and the successful cultivationof the lands the villagers resolved toclean the supply channel every year.They decided to contribute sixmeasures (Padi) of paddy per 30cents. The collected grains weresold and the money is deposited inVayalagam common fund and usedfor renovation activities.

Impact

• The cultivated area wasincreased from mere 30 acresto 300 acres.

• The productivity of the land wasincreased by 20% therebyincreasing the incomes of thefarmers.

• Earlier on the rough varieties of(TKM 9, CR 1009, IR 20) were

cultivated and direct sowing ofpaddy was in practice. Now,many varieties of Ponni of highquality are raised increasing theincomes from the same pieceof land. Apart from paddy,cotton, black gram, greengram, sesame and sorghum arecultivated through out the year.

• The number of livestock in thevillage increased due to theincreased agricultural activitywhich made available fodderfor the animals throughout theyear. Goat rearing became veryprofitable for the farmers.

• The land value increasedsignificantly due to theincreased productivity andwater availability.

• Life and health insuranceschemes were introducedthrough the Vayalagam tobenefit their members.

Vengudusamuthram tank

In the year 2005, weed clearancewas done in the Vengudusamythramtank. The renovation work done inthe Villur big tank resulted in the

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water being available in the five othertanks of the village. Desilting, bundstrengthening, supply channelclearance works were done in thistank. The cost of the work wasRs.60,000 of which Rs.45,000 wasfrom Oxfam Novib and theremaining was the contribution fromthe people. Previously, only 20 acreswere cultivated with the help of thefour wells and pump–sets. Once thework was completed in this tank allthe 175 areas of the command areaof the tank could be cultivated. Thisalso increased the ground waterlevels. More than 250 familiesdirectly benefited from the workdone in this tank.

Vetrankulam tank

In 2006, the supply channelcleaning in Vetrankulam tank wasdone for about 700 meters. A portionof the tank is still encroached by aroad. The major problem in this tankwas weak bunds which resulted inbreaches even for small rains andwater could not be stored in this tank.Bund strengthening was done afterremoval of weeds in the tank bed.The total cost of the work wasRs.1,00,000 with people contributionof Rs. 25,000. Only 15 families fromVillur benefited directly from the

work done in this tank. But morethan 250 families in the neighbouringvillages get benefited out of this tank.Even a summer shower could fill thetank, as the supply channelharvested the rainfall of the entirecatchment area. There are four dugwells which are supplying waterthrough out the year. Power-cuts arethe only limiting factor for the watersupply from the wells to field. Onewell owner has no land in the ayacutof Villur big tank but is benefitted bythe renovation in the tank.

By seeing the developmentactivities undertaken by theVayalagam in the village, he becamea member and is now one Committeemembers. There is feeling of unityamong the villagers and all of themhave come forward to create acommon fund for the Vayalagamthrough cash and grains. They weresuccessful in creating a fund to thetune of Rs. 2,00,000. This money isused for the renovation andmaintenance of the water bodies andother relevant development works inthe village.

Sevalkulam tank

In 2007, Swarnajayanthi GramRojgar Yojna (SGRY), food for work

was implemented in this village.Work estimated at Rs. 97,000 wascompleted in Sevalkulam tank.Around 450 meters of supplychannel was cleared, 750 meters ofbund was strengthened. This workemployed 80 per cent of the farmlabourers in the village providing thewage employment for them andcompleting the first phase ofSevalkulam tank renovation work.The second phase of Sevalkulamtank was done subsequently. Itinvolved sluice repair, bundstrengthening for 120 meters andsupply channel clearing for 50meters.

Flood management by Vayalagam

There was severe flood due tomonsoon rainfall in November 2007.The heavy down pour resulted in thedanger of floods in the village.Parivallal Vayalagam group membersproactively responded by mobilizingRs. 5,000 from the common fundand Rs. 20,000 by pledging jewelsand valuables of the members.Damages due to the floods wereminimized due to timely piling up ofsand bags at various weak points toprevent breaching of the tanks.

Fishing made profitable

Sethuraman, who wasinstrumental in forming theAssociations in Villur had anopportunity to visit T. Kallupattilocation’s Executive Council (EC)meeting. There he happened to hearabout fishing in tanks. He wasinspired by the concept anddiscussed with the Vayalagammembers. Usually the Villur big tankauction was conducted by thePanchayat and it had never beenprofitable so no one was interestedto take the lease. Sethuraman

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motivated the members of ParivallalVayalagam group members to leasethe tank for fish rearing. There wasdivision of labour among themembers in work of fish rearing. Atthe end of the season, there wasgood harvest of fish and an incomeof Rs. 27,000. As agreed with thePanchayat earlier, Rs. 7,000 (25 percent of the income) was given toPanchayat. Out of the remainingfunds Rs. 10,000 was used for tankrehabilitation, Rs. 5,000 was used forthe chain of tanks activities. Theremaining Rs. 5,000 was used formaintenance of tanks to pay for thetraditional water managers. Theagreement for ten years (2006 –20015) was signed betweenVayalagam and Panchayat in 2006 forthe fishing rights. There wassuccessful fishing and profitallocation for the past three years.

The Villur Today

It is an agrarian village inKallukudi block of Madurai districtin Tamil Nadu. The village got itsname due to interest of villagers inVillu competition. The population ofthe village is 8000 with 3800 menand 4200 women. Most of thevillagers depend on agriculture eitherin their own land or in others landfor wages. There are few (250)Government employees and another20 people are working abroad.

The village has all neededinfrastructure like primary andhigher secondary school,electrification, police station, primaryhealth centre, veterinary hospital,banks, and transport facilities. Theliteracy level is 100 per cent. Thevillage has good number of livestockwhich serves as livelihood alternativeand supplements the agriculture. Itis also blessed with water bodies –

eight tanks and six ponds. Thesupply channels (8.5 kilometers) tothe water bodies are maintained well.Proper maintenance of the waterbodies and the supply channelsfacilitates agriculture in 256 acres ofdry land, 980 acres of wet land.System of Rice Intensification (SRI)method of rice cultivation ispracticed. Crops like paddy, cotton,chilly, vegetables, ground nut, maizeare cultivated. All these were possibleonly by the efforts of the Peopleinstitutions promoted by DHAN andthe support extended by them.

People institutions promoted byVayalagam in Villur and tankrehabilitation works have broughtmany families back to Villur. Thewater scarcity and unviableagriculture made many families tomigrate to various places in searchof other jobs. Some farmers wentto those villages where they couldget agricultural works to earn dailywages. Increased water availabilityhas made agriculture viablethroughout the year. The cropproduction and productivity hasincreased. Tank works have reachedevery household and made everyman to be concerned about the tank

renovation, which in turn will decidethe crop stand. NABARD officialssay Villur is a model village on seeingthe impact of the tank works.Muthukamatchi is one among suchmigrants returned back to Villur.

Villur’s increased water availability

brought a migrant back

V. Muthukamatchi, a 45-year-oldfarmer, was skilled to grow beetlevine. As Villur was turned parched,beetle vine cultivation dwindled. Thissituation forced him and his familyto settle in Solavanthan where beetlevine is cultivated. He heard thestories of increased water availabilitythrough out the year. He decided toreturn to Villur. As he owned no land,he decided to lease in 32 cents ofland for Rs. 1500 per year for threeyears. He says, “After tankrehabilitation, our lives are better. Weget more man-days to work asagriculture coolie.” He compares,before tank renovation, the waterstand was low. Non-agriculturalworks like construction workshelped to earn our livelihood.Agricultural works were very costly;more money had to be spent formotor pumps to get water from wells

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the entire year. When the tank worksare done, the standing water in tankfacilitates increases water level inwells. Only when the tank is dry fora brief period, we pump out waterwith motor at the cost of Rs. 30 perhour. The field is irrigated for fourhours per day, once in four days. Allthese gave good beetle vines harvest.

The second benefit we realizefrom Vayalagam is timely credit.Beetle vines cultivation needs aninitial investment of Rs. 20,000. Wehad to depend only on moneylenders; the interest rate was Rs. 10for every Rs. 100. Humiliation wasmore when we failed to pay in time.By being a member of Vayalagammicro finance groups, timely creditis obtained at a lower interest rate.The collegial environment makes usprompt in payment. When toughsituations arise, we may delay thepayment, but the group understandsthe situation. Repayment is done atthe earliest. Now we get dignifiedlife.

Impact of Tank in Muthukamatchi’s

field

• After the tank works, wateravailability in tank is extended.Water is available to field by twomeans, seepage and irrigation ispossible without motor.

• Beetle leaves cultivated withgood irrigation fetches betterprice due to quality thancultivated with deficit water.Price is fixed by farmersthemselves.

• Weighing machine available inthe Vayalagam is used to ensureright price for the produce soldto merchants or agents.

• Agathi, a plant cultivated as asupport crop on which beetlevine climbs. The leaves of the

support plant are used asfodder to livestock and it hasmedicinal properties too. Thewood is sold out when itbecomes sturdy.

• Moringa is cultivated in bunds.Leaves and its pods(drumsticks) are used asvegetables, domesticallyconsumed and sold in thevillage.

• Chillies and banana arecultivated as border crops.

• Live fence is cultivated whichsupplies abundant fodder.

Returns from beetle leaves arerealized only after eight months ofcultivation. Till that time the othercrops gives some remuneration tothe family. Muthukamatchi isengaged in one or the other activitiesin the field. These sales give anincome of Rs. 100 per day. Familyexpense consumes Rs. 60 per dayand Rs. 20 is spent for fields and itsactivities like irrigation. Rs. 20 is theamount used for saved and spent forsocial obligations and otherunexpected expenses.

Economic benefits realized

• When comparing the interestthey paid to money lenders, theinterest they pay to Vayalagamis less. It is considered asmoney saved. Saving habit isincreased.

• The possibility of cultivation ofother crops in beetle vine fieldhelps him to get regular income.

• When he is not occupied withhis field works, he works as anagricultural coolie. Heconstructs bunds and landpreparation activities. He gets anincome of Rs. 120 per day.

• He sprays pesticides in otherfields as agricultural coolie. Heuses the sprayer of Vayalagamand gives Rs. 10 per day toVayalagam. He gets a wage ofRs. 110 (120-10) per day. Hedoes this work for around 60days each year. On an averagehe pays about Rs. 600 toVayalagam.

• In summer days, he works asa construction labourer. Heprepares the cement mixturefor construction and earns Rs.120 per day. He gets suchemployment for about 120days.

His family comprises his wife andtwo children. His wife M. Pappa (41)is an agricultural coolie (earning Rs.30 to 40 per day); she now goes forNREGA, earning Rs. 100 per day.Nagajyothi (15) studies in the 10th

standard and Ramar (14)studies inthe 9th standard.

His occupation trends in a yearcan be pictorially presented.

Proportion of occupations in Muthukamatchi’s life

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Food Security is ensured to farmer’s families

G. Pandi is a 45 years old farmer. He has studied upto Class 3 and later dropped out due to lack of interest instudies. He was sent to Tanjore as an agricultural labour to earn Rs. 5 per month (in 1974-75). He got trainedto do all agricultural works and tending to cattle. After a year of training he was capable of managing the entirefarming of the land lord. After few years of work he returned to join his parents in Villur. He got married at theage of 29 to Murugeswari without dowry due to his principle in life.

He got 2.5 acres (1.5 acre of dryland / rainfed and 1 acre of irrigated garden land) from his parents. He alsopurchased 58 cents of red cotton soil land in Sevalkulam tank ayacut with his hard earned savings. Agricultureis done only in 58 acres red cotton soil and one acre irrigated garden land. Both the lands lie near Sevalkulamtank but they are of different nature.

Apart from agriculture, the family owns six goats, ten hens (country breed). The family is dwelling in a houseinherited from his father. As Pandi is uneducated, he wants his children to study well. He admitted all childrenin school and they are not doing any agricultural works. Pandi takes care of agriculture and his wife takes careof the household and livestock. The income from the agriculture increased from Rs. 6,000 to Rs. 11,000.There is regular income from agriculture throughout the year from various crops cultivated in the irrigatedgarden land. By this he manages his family. Pandi says, “Without the renovation of Sevalkulam tank thisincome would not have possible. Previously we had to purchase food grains every day, draining our dailyincome. Now we cultivate the needed food grains for the family. We don’t purchase food grains and chilies. Itis a big savings for our family.” His wife goes for NREGA works to earn Rs. 100 per day on other days shegoes for agricultural works earning Rs. 30 – 40 per day. The family comprises of four school going children.The eldest son Senthil Murugan, 15 years old is studying 10th standard, daughter Kalaivani, aged 11 is studying6th standard, second son, Dakshinamurthi, aged 7 is in 2nd standard and the youngest daughter Annapoorani is4 years old is doing her Pre-Kinder Garden schooling.

He came to knowabout Vayalagamin April 2006 andbecame a membersince that period.Since he wasproactive andinterested indevelopment ofVillur, he wasselected asPresident ofS e v a l k u l a m

Kanmoi association in the first group meeting itself. He got a loan of Rs. 1200 for consumption in the firstmeeting (April 2006) which he repaid in six months period. His second loan of Rs. 5,000 (October ’06) was toinvest in agriculture for hiring tractor for land preparation for cultivation, seeds sowing, transplanting, fertilizersetc. He repaid the loan in 10 months. He availed the 3rd loan of Rs. 10,000 for agricultural expenses. On seeingthe prompt repayment and proactive initiatives for Villur development by joining hands with Sethuraman hewas selected as Coordination committee member of Thirumangalam Tank federation.

58 cents of red cotton soil

It is tankfed as it lies in thedownstream.

Only rice is cultivated (IR 20). It isused for household consumption only.The yield is 15 – 20 bags(72kgs/bag). The entire year’s needis met by this yield from the land.

The field is cultivated only in oneseason

1 acre irrigated garden land

It is irrigated using motor as it is located inupland.

Various crops are cultivated. Groundnut (sellsto get money), chillies (domestic use only shareswith friends and relatives, Banana is cultivatedin 40 cents, coconut is cultivated in the fieldboundaries.

The field is cultivated throughout the year.

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Community in Action

*Mr. U. Vellaiappan, Project Executive, DHAN Foundation, T. Kallupatti, Thirumangalam Region, Tamil Nadu.

Women in water bodies development

U. Vellaiappan*

Silarpatti watershed is located inT.Kallupatti Panchayat union of

Madurai district. Silarpatti watershedwas sanctioned to DHANFoundation as project implementingagency by the district watershedcommittee during X five year plan.Silarpatti watershed has presentlyconsists of six farmers’ groups(Uzhvar groups) UGs and 13 SelfHelp Groups (SHGs). Thiswatershed is covered by four villagesnamely Silarpatti, Gopinayakkanptti,S.Narikudi and S.Narasingapuram.

Silarpatti watershed has manynatural gullies and waterconservation bodies like oorani andtanks. S.Narasingapuram village hasone odai which leads water to thoppuOorani. This odai helps in manyways to people for filling of waterin Thoppu Oorani. Through thisOorani the near by lands with wellsgets groundwater recharge and helpsmore than 1600 animals and villagersfor drinking purpose. Hence this isconsidered as the major waterstorage body for S.Narasingapuramand Silarpatti village through itsbenefits of many ways.

Over the years the feeder channel(Thoppu oorani odai) wasabandoned slowly and it got heavilysilted up and encroached by landholders at the entire length of 750meters. Hence this odai was unableto lead the water to thoppu ooraniand made flow into reverse direction.

Based on this problem majority ofthe land’s top soil were eroded dueto improper flowing of watertowards slope. So the benefitingpeoples from the oorani are facingmany problems for consumption ofwater in the open well for irrigationthrough recharging and impossibleto rear the goats due to facing severewater scarcity.

Execution of Works

So odai user association(Thoppu oorani odai vayalagam) putefforts against odai encroachers onrenovation with the help ofwatershed association. The odai userassociation consists of 92 womenmembers coming from two villagesnamely S.Narikudi andS.Narasingapuram. They initiatedthe first step to approach revenuedepartment regarding encroachmenteviction. As the encroachers are

rich, socially dominated andinfluenced in local area they couldnot solve the problem by themselves.They got the original odai size (asper field measurement book) withthe help of revenue department. Theirsecond step was to collect themoney from the members for whichthey themselves took the initiatives.They collected an amount Rs. 2000and deposited in Silarpatti watershedassociation corpus account forensuring their participation withexpecting financial assistance forodai renovation. Their third stepwas to organize the human-powerand spent 92 women days to clearthe jungles existing in the odai as theirlabour which could be calculated asan investment incurred at the costof Rs. 4500.00. Totally 25 per centof the estimated cost wascontributed by above said womenmembers from five SHGs in the twovillages.

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In this work five women SelfHelp Groups have been participatedand executed the proposed channelclearance work with the assistanceof NWDPRA fund of Rs. 20,000and to ensure the water to the ooranifor multipurpose. The work hasbeen done during the year of 2004-2005. The participated womengroups were

Finally the odai was desiltationand to reform the original odai size

month. Before odai clearancethis oorani used only twomonths.

• Storing the run off waterefficiently.

• Prevention of the gully bankerosion in near by lands.

• Prevention of the land erosionbecause of the overflowing ofthe run off water in the gully.

• Gender participation is ensuringon water bodies developmentwork.

• Ensured Kudimaramathu murailike Shramadan (The membersare working by deputing theirhuman power towards thewater conservation with outexpecting the wages)

• Women leaders were identifiedand leading the manydevelopments works.

by the active participation ofwomen members.

The benefit realized through thiswork

• Access of the water for groundwater recharge to near by fiveopen wells.

• Access of the water for cattle’sdrinking for their primarylivelihood.

• Access to increase the storagecapacity of this oorani upto six

Community in Action

*Er. R. Devika, Project Executive, CURE Centre, DHAN Vayalagam (Tank) Foundation, Madurai, Tamil Nadu.

Reviving supply channel of Kochadai tank

Er. R. Devika*

In ancient days, the localcommunities maintained tanks by

desilting and transferring silt to theiragricultural lands every year. Tanksand lakes in and around Madurai,some of them are more than 2,000years old, were established beforemodernity directed, technologydriven apparatus were invented.Channels and tanks of historic dayshave turned either become defunctor silted due to absence ofmaintenance or given place for urbanconstructions. Maduraiaccommodates approximately 10.92square km of area under waterbodies. Experts say that, when thePublic Works Department (PWD)

replaced community management ofwater bodies, started ignoring theworks like deepening of lakes andtanks. Eventually it leads to declineof water bodies.

Degradation results due toencroachments, eutrophication fromdomestic and industrial effluents andsilt. Human settlements and publiceffluent turned out to make theproblem more intensified.Mushrooming of slums in historicallysignificant areas are the root causeof degradation of water bodies.Population explosion and its resultantinfrastructure development andencroachments have contributed to

degradation of urban water bodies.The surviving water bodies arewitnessing widespread decay anddecline, mainly due to heavy siltationand inadequate maintenance. Lack ofpublic awareness and active civilsociety, and governmentalindifference all add oil to the fire ofdegradation. The only solution forthis plight would be to createawareness among the public andencourage community participation.Participation of people in watershedmanagement and effective integratedwater and wastewater managementis essential for giving the resourcesto the future generations.

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Identification of Kochadai tank supply

channel:

In Madurai Marathon 2007, wetook initiative for protection of waterbodies in Madurai. As per data,nearly 38 tanks survived to meet theneed of Madurai people. Now someof the tanks turned into governmentbuildings, private institutions andsome remains encroached by people.Therefore, we listed out 13 urbanwater bodies for revival. Thesetanks were recharging ground waterand used for irrigation. Out of these13 tanks, six tanks are coming underPeriyar Vaigai division-1 and seventanks are coming under the controlof Periyar vaigai division II. Wevisited six tanks and its supplychannel.

Simultaneously the memoirs andmaps were collected. From the fieldvisit we inferred that all tanks wereencroached. With the support ofpeople institution, we gave letter tocollector and revenue department formarking the encroachment. Theystarted their marking in the Kochadaisupply channel as it was the first tankrecommended for revival. Formarking, we waited for surveyor’stime and often visited his office.Regularly we met Tahsildar andVilllage Administrative Officer forsupport. The surveyor identified theboundary of Kochadai supplychannel. We gave press news forinsisting the encroachment evictiontwice. Finally, we drafted a letter andexplained every process for evictionof encroachment. With the help ourprogramme team, we approachedPWD secretary, Chief engineer ofPWD and revenue officials. After 10months, we got No Objectioncertificate (NOC) from PWD for sixtanks.

The entire channel of Kochadaisupply channel of 2030 meters wasencroached by public residence,school ground, garden, brickchamber, tiles company, shops andetc. So the work ahead to evict thesupply channel was a Herculean taskfor us. We seek assistance fordistrict Collector, revenuedepartment and PWD department.After a continuous persistence of sixmonths, revenue and PWDdepartment people came for survey.It took a week to trace the boundaryof the channel. Levelling instrumentswere used to record the presentsituation. Estimate was preparedwith the help of primary andsecondary data collected fromrevenue department. Estimate wasprepared for jungle clearance anddesilting of the supply channel ofKochadai tank. Encroachmenteviction work was done by PWDand we extended the support to it.Based on the impact of MaduraiMarathon 2007, a resolution waspassed by Pothigai federation torenovate a water body. Kochadai

tank was situated in their operationarea, hence it was their piece of cakeand they responded with communityparticipation. Leaders joined theprocess of visiting officialsrequesting survey and evictionworks. All members of the federationmobilised Rs. 25,000 for this workand DHAN gave and equalcontribution of Rs. 25,000. ThisRs.50,000 was maintained as waterfunds in the name of PothigaiVayalagam.

About Kochadai supply channel

Kochadai tank is situated inKochadai Panchayat in MaduraiSouth taluk of Madurai district.Kochadai tank is a P.W.D. tank andits registered Ayacut is 269.88 ac.This tank receives water from VaigaiRiver through feeder channel whichtakes off at 2km upstream side ofthe tank. The two banks of thesupply channel were encroached atmany places by house holds, temple,coconut trees, small petty shops andbrick chambers. The tank earth hasalso been excavated profoundly by

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the brick makers. Most of the ayacutwas converted into houses. About77 acres of land and its ayacut isbeing cultivated with the groundwater. The supply channel was notmaintained for more than 40 years.Hence it got silted up heavily andinfested with Prosophis jungle. Thistank is the main recharge source formore than 1800 wells in thecorporation ward 71.

We initiated the work. Daily twoLuskar officials from PWDdepartment and one assistantengineer of PWD department visitedthe site and gave instructions.Whenever problem occurs, revenuedepartment people would visit andtake steps to solve it. Theencroachment was a big hindrancefor the progress of work. Therefore,we decided to do the evictionsimultaneously.

Types of encroachments

Based on their encroachmenttype, the encroachments weregrouped into three types-

Type 1:

The encroachers were very poorpeople living a life on earning on dailybasis. They were either living inencroached areas in their own hutsor in rented houses. However theyknew that it was a porampoke land,and they had no ownership on theland. But they did not have any otheralternative place or resources tomeet their housing need.

Type 2:

They were middle class people.They were living in houses withmore comfort. They owned somepiece of land and they haveextended the limit of the house.They occupied the channelcompletely and turned the channelinto lorry workshop, shops.

Type 3:

The encroachers were usuallyvery rich people. They do not careabout encroachment. Their attitudewas to use the land to the maximumextend possible; they were backedby political and money power. Theyhave constructed temples and bigbuildings, in the encroached lands.

Encroachment Eviction

First initiative of eviction startedwith demolishing a brick chamberand a house, which were built in thesupply channel. They tried to stopour works by giving disturbances toour works. The next eviction wastiles company, which occupied 75per cent of the channel width (60 mX 10 m). When the owners of thetiles company came to know aboutour plan to demolish their unit theytried to bribe us. We ignored it andproceeded to demolish the unitconstructed in the supply channel.Then the subsequent areas wereplanted with coconut trees, silkcotton trees, and banana trees. Thewidth of 3 meters was maintainedthroughout the length. Residentsdwelling in the adjacent areas hadplanted the trees. When they cameto know that eveiction is going totake place, they had to accept thereality of loosing their benefits theywere enjoying until that time. Theywere using this grooves and channelas walking pathway to reach the mainroad. They protested the eviction andagitated demanding a bridge tofacilitate pathway. However, wecontinued the eviction and cleared thegrooves and uprooting the trees. Wetold them to approach thegovernment for a bridge and we wentahead with the eviction. Works till thispoint of time, eviction was just a taskto be completed.

The next area to be evicted was aschool whose playground andwatchman building were built on thesupply channel. The schooladministration requested us to avoideviction in their premises. Theyfeared the children would fall in thechannel and parents may fear about

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the child’s safety in the schooltimings. When I went to supervisethe work, my heart was heavy seeingthe children playing near our evictionworks. But it is the responsibility ofthe school administration to find analternative to this. The next area wasoccupied by two houses built bypoor coolie workers. The masters(owners), under whom they workedfor years, gave the land as a giftbefore 15 years to the two poorfamilies. The poor people built theirhouses with what all they earned intheir lifetime. The families had noother resources to manage thesituation. We decided to demolish andwe received threats from the masterswho gave the land to the poor coolieworkers. We felt very sorry for thepoor families and it was a toughmoment to see them cry. Weproceeded to demolish the housesusing JCB. The poor families thoughtwe demolished due to the personalvengeance initially. After they hadseen the documents from revenuedepartment and understood the legalimplications, they agreed to cooperatefor eviction.

The immediate encroachmentwas a big compound wall worth Rs.12 lakhs belonging to an industrialistin Madurai. It was built exactly inthe midway of the supply channel.To demolish the compound wall wespoke with the engineers who workfor the industrialist. By that time, thepeople who encroached down thechannel have decided to co-operatethe eviction if we demolish theaffluent person’s compound andwould resist eviction if we leave thecompound untouched. The owner ofthe compound wall being an affluentpersonality of Madurai, the publicthought we would leave his property

undisturbed. We spoke with thecompound owner’s engineerexplaining the process of eviction.They accepted immediately and wedemolished the compound wall onthe next day. Seeing this eviction, allothers who encroached down thechannel cooperated. Down thechannel, the encroachers wereshopping complex, residences,temples, lorry service stations andwater suppliers. The entire lengthhad the main part of the building inown land and had their front portionlike vehicle parking and workingarea in the encroachment area. Theytried to block our efforts as evictionwould hinder their comfort.

We successfully completed theeviction with cooperation offederation members, PWD officialsand revenue department officials.During eviction, PWD called tenderfor a contract to fix WaterResources Organisation (WRO)boundary stone with concrete pillar.The PWD-selected contractor laidthe boundary simultaneously withour eviction process. When theeviction was completed, there wasa clean revived supply channelwhich was a defunct channel formore than three decades, was linedwith boundary stones. The channelwas dug for a three-meter width withan average depth of 1.2 meters.Bunds on both sides had been formedclose to the boundary to preventfurther encroachment. The channelof around 10-meter width wasclearly demarcated by erectingconcrete pillars on either side. Thetotal work cost was Rs.1,86,000.

Jungle clearance and Desilting

Jungle was so dense, whichmade excavation difficult. It was a

dense vegetation of shrubs andbushes including Jetropa, Prosaphis,Palmyra trees and many other wildspecies. It took two months (from20. 01. 09 to 08. 03. 09) to completethe jungle clearance. The earthmover worked for 300 hours tocomplete the task. The work wasstarted on January 2009. Theproposed channel length was 1830mthrough out the length, nearlyRs.40,000 worth of coconut trees,cotton, and neem trees are removed.Nearly Rs.10 lakh worth ofencroachment was removed. Thewidth was maintained 3m throughoutthe length. Earth was excavated anddeposited on both sides of the supplychannel bank.

People’s Voice:

More than 1800 wells in this areaget recharged even with a shortshower, says a person residing in thearea. Kochadai area often sufferswater scarcity for agriculture. Nowthe situtation have changed withonset of monsoon, the lowering ofthe water table can be elevated if thesupply channel is revived and itcould facilitate good quality drinkingwater. The supply channel wouldbenefit people living in Doak Nagar,Achampathu, Kochadai, AshokNagar and Thuvariman by providingdrinking water. People residing in thisarea feel that their comfort level andtheir regular routine are disturbed asthey were using the channel aspathway. They need a minimum of30 culvert (a small bridge likestructure) to facilitate crossing thechannel. Real estate businessmen saythe eviction has disturbed theirbusiness as the market value of theland is greatly decreased after theeviction.

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*Er. N. Venkatesan, Programme Leader, DHAN Vayalagam (Tank) Foundation, Madurai, Tamil NaduPaper presented in TNAU, Coimbatore on Monitoring Impact Assessment of Watershed Development.

Perspective

Tank Based Watershed Development:

Lessons learnt from Grassroots Participatory Impact Evaluation

Er. N.Venkatesan*

Introduction

In 1970s, watersheddevelopment had no special

significance for the developmentcommunity in India. Some of theprojects that became success storiesand household names, likeSukhomajri and Ralegon Sidhi, werealready underway, but received verylittle attention. However, the situationchanged radically by the end of the1980s. The major examples ofwatershed development taken upearlier had started to leave their markon the development community.Sukhomajri and Ralegon Sidhi werenow well known examples ofsuccessful watershed developmentefforts. As a result, during the 1980s,the Indian Council of AgricultureResearch (ICAR) initiated some 42‘model watersheds’ all over thecountry (under the OperationResearch Programme).

The concept of integratedwatershed development, whichbegan with the experimentation ofSukhomajri and Ralegon Sidhi andthe Operation Research Projects ofICAR in the 1980s, was firstinstitutionalized in the form of theNational Watershed DevelopmentProgramme for Rainfed Areas(NWDPRA) in 1990 with anallocation of Rs.133,800 million inthe 8th Five Year Plan. Following theHanumantha Rao Committee’sreview in 1994 and the formulation

of ‘Common Guideline’, the period1995-2001 saw the implementationof the ‘first generation’ project phaseunder the Revised Guidelines of 2001with support from the Governmentof India as well as many bilateralagencies.

Watershed development was thusincreasingly seen as the Linchpin ofrural development in dryland areas;as something that would tie togetherand ground the rural developmenteffort. Notable examples ofwatershed development seemed tooffer a way out of stagnation anddegradation for all those areas thatthat development seemed to havebypassed, because it was preciselyin those kinds of areas that watersheddevelopment had left its mark – thedrylands, the wastelands, the

degraded commons and the semi-arid and arid regions perpetuallyunder the shadow of drought.

Tank based Watershed Development

According to the minor irrigationcensus conducted during 1986-87,Tamil Nadu had over 39000 minorirrigation tanks using surface water.These small-scale surface irrigationworks are widespread and serveextensive areas. Tanks, which arerelatively small and having shallowstorages, constitute about a third ofall minor irrigation in use. In threedistricts of Tamil Nadu (Pudukottai,Sivagangai and Ramanathapuram)tanks are the dominant irrigationsources accounting for over 80 percent of the total irrigated area. Inthe State, the tanks account for over

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26 per cent of the irrigated area.Being small storages, tanks haverelatively small ayacut and on anaverage, it is 22 hectares. Thechallenge in the tankfed areas issustainable agriculture andconservation and development ofthese small-scale water bodies.However, in Tank intensivewatersheds, no new storagestructure will be introduced in theircatchment areas.

The major stakeholders from theGovernment side in the tank andpond management are the WaterResources Organisation of PublicWorks Department and thePanchayat Unions. There are variousother departments involved in tankmanagement like, Forest,Agriculture, AgriculturalEngineering, Fisheries, etc. Thoughthe beneficiaries would be majorstakeholders, all the people of thevillage benefiting from the waterbodies would also be the otherstakeholders.

Measures for Tank basedWatershed Development

• Conservation, development/rehabilitation and sustainablemanagement of naturalresources like tanks, ponds,feeder channels and other waterbodies like springs and streamswith the full involvement of thepeople

• Vegetation improvement in thetank areas and greening thevillages

• Community managed operationand maintenance of the tanksand ponds for effective watermanagement includingconjunctive use of water

through community wells andequitable distribution of waterthrough Water Users’Association.

• Usufructory rights of the waterbodies to the poor and landlessSHGs

• Soil and in-situ moistureconservation measures liketrenching, check dams, etc

• Promoting tank basedlivelihoods

People participatory Approach:

DHAN Foundation’s Experience

DHAN Foundation has beenimplementing people participatorytank development program since1992 in Tamil Nadu, AndhraPradesh, Karnataka and Pondicherry.Tanks are the lifeline for rainfedagriculture in most of the districtsin the southern states. Tanks are themini watersheds. The Programmeorganises people around theresources and promote people’sinstitutions at different levels i.e.Tank Farmers Association and

Dryland Farmers Association,Watershed Association/Cluster levelassociation, sub-basin or basin levelassociation/Farmers Federation. Inall the project areas the program putefforts to enlist people’sparticipation. The experiences andlearnings are as follows:

Opportunity for Participation:

Success of any participatoryprogramme depends on theopportunity available for differentactors to participate in theprogramme right from the projectplanning. The programme providesadequate space for individual and forcommunity as a whole to participatein the programme. The programmeorganises village level meeting andwhich assures the participation. Toensure active participation theprogramme put maximum efforts inthe first village meeting onwards.Depending upon the social setup inthe village the team follows any oneor combination of efforts to ensureattendance in the meeting. Theyinclude organising meeting through

DHAN foundation believes in participatory approach throughout theproject period starting from delineation of watershed, baseline creationto completion of the work and post project sustainability. During eachstage, based on the people’s suggestion through the participatorymonitoring and evaluation, the new things have been added in theimplementation and management of the systems to sustain theinitiatives. The DHAN foundation presently implementing 45watersheds under NWDPRA, 3 watersheds under NABARD and 15more watersheds under DPAP and 10 more watersheds under ITC(Private Public partnership programme with ITC at Sivaganga district).In all these watersheds the participatory monitoring and evaluationprocess is followed in all the stages of the project implementation. Bythis process we could able to identify the right kind of the beneficiariesfor interventions, the right kind of the intervention under each componentof the watershed activities. The ownership of the community by way ofcontribution and involving in the implementation have been realizedwhich led to sustaining the initiative for future maintenance of thestructures created.

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village committee, through CasteAssociation, through other villagersand through house-to-houserequest. The way we organise thefirst meeting laid foundation forparticipation.

Resolving Conflicts:

Conflict is a natural phenomenonin any system. It is a strugglebetween incompatible and opposingneeds, wishes, ideas, interests orpeople. In any participatory project,conflict is inevitable. The unresolvedconflicts from the past, exclusionof a few stakeholders, encroachers,deliberate misuse of commonresources, infringement ontraditional rights, inequity amongdifferent stakeholder groups,individualism etc hampers theparticipation.

In our cases the characteristicsof the conflict are as follows:• Conflicts arise from the

emotional issues• Conflicts arise over the

ownership, Control and use ofthe resources. E.g.Encroachers and illegal waterusers.

• Conflicts are latent for longperiods of time if the partieshave no chance to have aconfrontation. E.g. No villagemeetings

• Conflicts around commonresources like tanks and pondsseverely affect the status of thepoor because it closelyassociated with the survival ofthe poor. Eg. Drinking water.

The team has adopted thefollowing steps to resolve andmanage the conflicts.

• Wherever differences of opinionamong the members towardsvillage common work are foundout, the team acknowledges thatthere exist a conflict and workstowards resolving it.

• Patiently hearing the differentpoints of view within andoutside the village

• Together with the villagers theteam explores ways to resolvethe conflicts.

• Jointly evolve a solution byconsensus.

Our approach in the conflicts willcreate a healthy working relationshipamong the villagers. New rules arebrought out and thereby newmanagement regimes are created forvillage administration and commonresource management. In manycases a second line of leadershipemerges and neutralise the existingpower equations from the village.

Contribution mobilisation:

Contribution is compulsory fora real participation. People shouldcontribute minimum 25 per cent ofthe project cost either through labour

Because of the strategy of conflict resolution through the processmonitoring in all the watersheds implemented by the DHAN foundation,many conflicts have been identified and resolved by the communitythemselves within the watersheds. The examples of such conflictswere:• Encroachments in the water bodies at many places have been

evicted with the support of revenue officials• Water sharing issues in the water bodies like tanks at many

places have been resolved amicably• Issues related to village events like temple festivals sharing the

common lands for collective action etc have been resolved• Many places the individual family level issues related to sharing

the resources have been amicably settled down

At the time implementation the issues like occupying the sites for soilconservation works, fixing the rates for the implementing civil works,and related issues have been resolved

From DHAN foundation’s experiences, mobilising people’s contributionis an effective strategy for building the stake of the community and itwould lead to real ownership of the community on the assets createdas common property resources. By this way we have ensured the 25percent contribution in all the watershed development works throughthe proper monitoring and evaluation throughout the process ofimplementation. Because of this 25 percent contribution concept, thecommunity could able to do more work per available amount by way ofparticipatory implementation by supervising the works critically. Andat the same time they also deposited the 5 to 10 percent money in thewatershed development account opened specifically for futuremaintenance. By this way each watershed have Rs. 1.5 Lakh on anaverage as corpus fund for future maintenance after the project period.

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or kind or cash or combination ofany two or three. The compulsorycontribution builds people’s stake inthe project. It also makes theprogram more accountable to thepeople. In our programme,contribution after programmeimplementation in maintenance oftank complex systems could be seenin many places every year, whichimplies people ownership in order tomaximise the benefits.

Project Implementation:

All the activities of the programare implemented only through thepeople’s organisations. The programfunds including the Grant from theGovernment are spent by thepeople’s organisation. The projectpersonnel in no way get involved inhandling funds. They never engagecontractors to do any projectactivities. DHAN Foundationexecutives facilitate theimplementation process by way offree techno-managerial inputs;training local people on supervisingthe work vis-à-vis monitor theprogress. Thus the responsibility ofleaders reflects in cost effectiveimplementation with quality. It alsobuilds people stake in the project.

Process Review:

The interaction within, betweenand among the project personnel andpeople is systematically reviewedthen and there. This will help theproject to ensure maximum level ofparticipation. If any changes areneeded in the implementation, theyare carried out immediately. It helpedthe project to ensure memberconsensus throughout the project.

Integration of Privately ownedResources and CommonResources:

Common resources developmentis given maximum possible attentionit the program. The Program alwaysmaintains a balance between theprivately owned and commonresources development. The fundallocation to common resourcesdevelopment and benefits sharingfrom common resources aresystematically worked out byinvolving the people.

Basin approach:

Watershed is a part of the riverbasin. Watershed developmentprogram should not be implementedin isolation or based on other man-made parameters. The river basinswill be considered as a broader areafor expansion of the program on alimited time dimension say within 10years. While doing so, the revenueboundaries, state boundaries shouldnot become bottleneck.

The way forward and

recommendations

Based on our experiences ofimplementing various watershedprogrammes during last 10 moreyears, we learned many things fromthe community through theirparticipation and implementation andwe propose the following model ofwatershed programmeimplementation as to ensure thesustainable development of thenatural resources by the communityas narrated here:

1. Each Micro Watershed wouldhave Two Phases of Project LifeDuration namely 5 years underPhase –I and 3 years underPhase –II.

2. The Phase I could be furtheremphasized with specific focusas mentioned below

1st Year : EstablisingMemorundum of Cooperation withNGOs by Tamil Nadu Watershed

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Development Agency (TAWDEVA)and District Water ManagementAgency (DWMA), CommunityPreparedness, Planning and ProposalSubmission, Sanctioning Process,Orientation towards VALAM andEntry Point Programmes, IdentifyingAction Research Areas.

2nd Year : Identification ofPhysical Works for entire watershed,Issues Mapping, Resolving Issues,Technical Estimates Preparation,Validation, Base Line DataDevelopment with ImpactMonitoring Indicators, CapacityBuilding of Three Streams, ActionResearch Design, Sharing andApproval

3rd Year : Physical WorkImplementation and AgriculturalLivelihood DevelopmentInterventions, Need Assessment andSkill Building for CommunityEnterprise Initiation, UndertakingAction Research

4th Year : Interim Evaluation,Value Addition for improvement ofPhysical work implementation andLivelihood Interventions, CapacityBuilding, Continuing ActionResearch

5th Year : Project Consolidation,Final Evaluation (Social, Physical andEconomical), Results of ActionResearch

i. The membership of WatershedAssociation should be on HouseHold Basis wherein both Genderenrolls and Gender Action Planshould be derived forAgricultural and Non farmLivelihoods

ii. Each watershed would beimplemented throughWatershed Association andwatersheds would be selectedon Contiguous basis in a Sub-basin level in order to achievearea based development andrealize the impact of massiveinvestment for broader area. Inour proposal 19 districts and 11basins and more than 50 Sub-basins would be benefited.

iii. The investment rationale forwatershed programme as thisproposes Watershed Plus wouldbe Rs.12000 per ha during thefirst phase, of which theGovernment Share would beRs. 8000 per ha and the peoplecontribution through Cash,Kind, Labour and Loan wouldbe Rs.4000 per ha for eachmicro watershed.

iv. PFA instead of PIA: Since thefunctional groups promotedlocally (i.e.,) WatershedAssociations comprising UserGroups and SHGs are going toimplement the programme, theline departments or the NGOswill be the facilitating agenciesonly. In this context, the phrase“Programme ImplementingAgency (PIA) now used in thewatershed developmentdocuments is a misnomer andit needs to be changed asProgramme Facilitating Agency(PFA).

v. Significance of NGOs inwatershed developmentprogrammes: The watersheddevelopment programme is

more of people oriented thanthe technology oriented. Thepolicy of Govt. of India throughits WARASA (JANSAHBHAGITA) document alsoclearly brings out the people’sparticipation to the centre-stagein implementing watersheddevelopment projects. So, thepre-requisite for the success ofany watershed programme willbe “enabling the people” inplanning, implementing andmaintaining the developmentworks in their watersheds.

vi. As is well known, the Govt.system is efficient inTechnology and accounting,where as NGO system is goodin organizing and inspiring thepeople with commitment forsocial service. So, utilising theservices of NGO’s which havesuitable technical personnel intheir pay roles as PFA also canyield the expected results ofwatershed development. Onthis score, at present a fewNGOs are involved in theimplementation of watersheddevelopment works throughpeople’s participation.

vii. But, in the recent past, the NGOpopulation has increased muchwith multi-various objectivesstated for each one of them. Sothere is a need for fixing criteriafor selecting the reputed andsuitable NGOs as PFAs forwatershed development. Sucha model criteria is furnishedbelow.

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Visit

*Er. A.Gurunathan, Chief Executive, DHAN Vayalagam (Tank) Foundation and Er. R.Venkatasamy, Programme Officer, DHAN Vayalagam (Tank) Foundation, Madurai.

Our Experience in Fifth World Water Forum

Er. A.Gurunathan, Er.R.Venkatasamy*

Istanbul, the cultural gateway ofEurope and a region where human

civilization began many centuries agobefore Christ, the capital of Turkeywas the venue for the conduct ofthe much proclaimed waterextravaganza of the world namely 5th

World Water Forum. The world’slargest event, once in three years,found its way to Istanbul fromMorocco, The Hague, Kyoto andMexico were convened with thesupport of World Water Council,Istanbul BUYUKSHEHIR, DSI andISKI (Istanbul Su Ve KanalizasyonIdaresi) from March 16 to March22, 2009.

The forum aimed to bringsustainable solutions to water relatedproblems of modernity focussed onsix thematic areas namely globalchange and risk management,advancing human development andMDGs, managing and protectingwater resources, governance,finance and education, knowledgeand capacity development. Besidesthematic discussions by seminarsand side events, children’s forum,youth forum and learning centreprovided platform for everyone toparticipate and express their viewpoints based on the regional andagro-climatic context in the wake ofpresent global melt down andfinancial crisis. Over 30000participants from 192 countriesacross the globe took part andcreated a history that the most

number of participants in a singleevent convened in the World till date.

Side events numbering 104 wereheld as parallel workshops,seminars, debates, closed doormeetings, documentary screeningetc. organised by more than 100organisations to highlight the issues,frame work, mechanisms,approaches in combating mammothwater related problems.

Parliamentarian meetings ofTurkey were held on 18-19 Marchto develop water legislation help deskproposal to address issues liketransboundary waters, right towater, decentralization policies, etc.

From March 20-22, the forumhold ministerial conference and over200 water ministers across the globetook part to consensus and put forIstanbul water guide with a clearmessage on the overall theme “Watermanagement adaptation strategiesfor global changes including climatechange/variability”.

Twenty Four seminars wereorganised in all six themes puttogether and tabulated as under

There were also dedicatedregional processes to discuss theregional specific burning waterissues on each day for Europe,Americas, Asia-Pacific, Arab, Africa,in and around Turkey andMediterranean. In the forum, there

were meetings of high level expertpanels on water and disaster,adaptation to climate change,sanitation, financing for water andwater, food and energy.

Water fair housed global watereducation village, civil society village,Istanbul 2010, arts & culture,speaker corner, citizen’s waterhouse and learning centre. Multistake holders activities like posterexhibitions, photo exhibitions,international water and film eventwere held in Water Fair. In the spacemade available to us, we could placethe posters on Vayalagam waterdevelopment interventions,brochures and our publications.

The water programme of DHANFoundation found its place in twothematic discussions by way ofpresentations in a round table processin ‘Adaptation to Climate Change’(Theme 1 Topic 1.1.2) convened byFood and Agricultural Organisation,Global Environment Fund andInternational Water Association andpresentation as a speaker in theme‘Ensuring Adequate StorageInfrastructure to Meet Agricultural,Energy and Urban and Rural Needs’(Theme 3 Topic 3.2.3) convened byInternational Commission on LargeDams (ICOLD) and China Instituteof Water Resources and HydroPower Research (IWHR). Ourpower points can be requested bysending e-mail todhantank@gmail.com

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World Water Council which isan International Water networkwhere in DHAN Foundation is apotential member had pavilion at 5th

World Water Forum. In the Pavilion,the World Water Council providedmembers’ hub to connect,communicate and collaborate oncewater actions. We screened films onour tank cascade development inNalgonda and Pan-IIT Philanthropyinitiatives and shared our experiencein tank conservation, tank basedwater shed development, safedrinking water for poor households,urban water initiatives includingwaste water recycling and sanitation

under a topic “Traditional Smallscale Water Resources andLifelines”. This space helped us toposition our organisation with globalperspective.

One of our water expertise andtraining centre partner, CanadianNGO, CAWST organiseddeliberations on How to scale ofhousehold water treatmentprograms, where in we hadhighlighted our successfulimplementation experience withwater demand perspective.

We too had our share of half daysight seeing to water works in

Theme 1- Global Change and Risk Management

1. Adapting to Climate Change

2. Water related Migration, Changing land-Use andHuman Settlements

3. Managing Disasters

Theme 2- Advancing Human Development and MDGs

1. Ensuring Water, Sanitation, Hygiene for All

2. Water for Energy, Energy for Water

3. Water and Food for Ending Poverty and Hunger

4. Multiple uses of Water

Theme 3 – Managing and Protecting Water

Resources

1. Basin Management and TransboundaryCooperation

2. Ensuring Adequate Water Resources andStorage facilities to meet Agricultural, Energyand Urban needs

3. Preserving Natural Ecosystems

Theme 4 – Governance and Management

1. Implementing the Right to Water and Sanitationfor Improved Access

2. Institutional Arrangements and RegulatoryApproaches for Efficient and Effective Watermanagement

3. Ethics, Transparency and Empowerment ofstake holders

4. Managing and Protecting Surface, Ground, Soiland Rain Waters

Theme 5 – Finance

1. Sustainable means of financing local waterauthorities and systems

2. Pricing Strategies for Financial Sustainability inWater Sector

3. Pro-poor financial policies

Theme 6 – Education, Knowledge and Capacity

Development

1. Education and Capacity Development Strategies

2. Water Science and Technology: InnovativeSolutions for the 21st century

3. Using the Assets of professional Associationsand Networks to Achieve the MDGs

4. Data for All

5. Water for Culture

Istanbul’s endowed Islamic historywhere huge numbers of mosques,water links connecting Black Seaand Aral Sea (a Strait dividing Europeand Asian portion of Istanbul). Thisreiterated not only to us but all usHumanity Water Remain a VitalIngredient of Life. We vow tocontinue our journey in faith andconfidence to rebuild local actionsfor water resources management inour project area. We are very gratefulto DHAN Foundation and Worldwater Forum Secretariat to make ourpresence in the global arena withpride and dignity.

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Event

Celebrating Vayalagam Movement

Er. N. Venkatesan*

*Er. N. Venkatesan, Programme Leader, Vayalagam (Tank) Foundation, Madurai, Tamil Nadu.

You all are aware that we arecelebrating Vayalagam

Movement Day on 7th March. Thisyear we thought we can contributeto the society by doing works forwater bodies through Vayalagamshramadhan (donating manpower) inthe tank and its system across manyvillages simultaneously at alllocations. We earlier celebrated theday with single event at one placeby gathering the mass. But thosehad not made the vibrancy for themovement identity at majoritymembers in the location. Hencesince last year we decided tocelebrate the day with village levelevents of more numberssimultaneously to get more people(members) participation. In that waylast year on 7th March, 2008 therewere more than 192 shramadhansacross south India at various villages.This year we planned to celebratethe day with 246 shramadhanssimultaneously at all locations andregions with 15000 participantsacross south India.

The basic principle behind theshramadhan is also coinciding with

our purpose of Vayalagam movementto create the local management ofthe tanks and small scale waterbodies by the communitythemselves. The sharmadhan in thetank complexes by the communityonce in a particular period is alsosimilar to maintenance of thetemples by the public in Tamil calledUlavara Pani (which means doinga work from heart, not compulsion).In this process every villager workwith lot of involvement andenthusiasm for the betterment of thetemple, it’s surrounding area andother public property owned by thecommunity once in a particularperiod as regular event.

The tanks are like temples needto be maintained by the peopleregularly through shramadhan. Thisis the principle for integrating theshramadhaan as one of themovement activities to inculcate theculture of the periodical maintenanceby the community itself. Theshramadhaan have been planned withthe activities such as cleaning the

s u p p l yc h a n n e l s ,clearing theweeds in thebunds and tankbeds and theyalso do thepongal in thetank premisesand distribute

the happiness on the eve of the dayto many people who participate inthe event.

We recall the decision of ourmovement’s annual general bodymeeting resolution on conducting1000 tanks sharmadhan this year2008-09 at all the locations puttogether.

Shramadhaan activities werecarried out in all regions as a part ofVayalagam Movement Celebrations.

The entire March month’s focuswas on movement day celebrationand it added significance as itcoincide with the world water dayon 22nd March. We had decided toencourage shramadaan at villagelevel. This would help renovate thewater bodies as well as it would bea means of showing solidarity suchas public meeting, pathayatra andrally. By celebrating such events,members and leaders get enthusiasmand motivation for being asVayalagam member and do collectiveaction.

21

The purpose of this methodis to identify households on

the basis of predefined indicatorsrelated to socio-economicconditions. This methodconcentrates on a relative ranking ofpeople’s socio-economic conditions(e.g., relatively well-off and worse-off), rather than making an absoluteassessment. This method can helpassess which households arebenefiting from the project and ifthese belong to the intended targetgroup. It mainly focuses on thedepiction pattern, nature of housingand social infrastructures like roads,drainage systems, schools, drinkingwater facilities, etc. It depicts whatthe local people believe to be relevantand important to them. It helps us inunderstanding how people andresources are organised. SocialMapping of a village provides apicture of the way houses, watertaps, etc., are organised and can helpus see class and caste patterns.Similarly, natural resource mappingcan give us details of land, water,trees, and other such resources, theirlocations in relation to the village, andfrom there on to an indication of howand by whom they are used.

Social mapping can provide anoverview of any socio-economicaspects, such as leadership,professions, skills and experiencesin a community, as well as its well-being. However, well-being rankingfocuses on a community’sperceptions of well-being, such asstatus, size of land and family,income, etc. In both cases, we can

Development Tools

*Tata-Dhan Academy, Madurai, Tamil Nadu.

Social mapping

PDM 8 batch Students of Tata-Dhan Academy

get the details of access to watersupply and sanitation facilities byp o o r / m i d d l e / h i g h e r - i n c o m ehouseholds.

Both methods are also useful fora purpose or quota samplingprocedure, by making a selectionfrom different well-being classes. Bydiscussing what well-being means ateach monitoring event, it is alsopossible to track changes in thecriteria of well-being to see ifpeople’s aspirations are shifting.

This method is most useful whenranking in groups of a limited size.It can be used in larger communities,focusing on neighbourhood-specificrankings, but it will be difficult tocompare results between sections.

We are going to see how socialmapping and well being mappingwere done by two teams, one withmicrofinance focus another one withhealth focus.

Rationales of this technique:

As micro finance has become amajor tool to tackle poverty, it needsto be monitored and evaluatedthrough PRA or research. Formationof groups or providing savings andcredit facilities are not enough, itneeds proper evaluation whichwould find out the status of the stakeholders. The SHG households canbe categorised into variouscategories (survival, subsistence,and self employment), to know thegrowth of the SHGs as well as the

economic condition of the eachmember.1. Participatory methods are being

used with existing groupmembers to identify thevulnerable/needy sections ofvillage and to find out the resultsvaried from village to village.

2. In the process it can discoverthe SHG-Bank linkageprogramme in the village.

3. Adoption of participatoryapproach can make microfinance interventions morerelevant as also ensure long termsustainability.

Process

First we decided the process anddetails to be obtained. A spaciouscommon place in the village wherethe villagers could assemble wasselected for conducting socialmapping. We were ready for theexercise by collecting all the requiredmaterials like colour powders,sketch pens, chalks, charts, marketpens, lights, sound and speakerarrangements. We organised thepeople by playing some Tamil folksongs, devotional songs and bydoor-to-door invitation. After peoplegathered in a common place, one ofour team facilitated the process. Heexplained very comprehensivelyabout the process and its purpose.

Then we invited people who areinterested to take part in the process.

22

Mobilizing and making people understand regarding the social mapping

Some three persons come forwardto takeoff the process. They startedwith sketching the path of the riveraround the village; slowly they drewthe houses and infrastructures of thevillage. After they finished the wholemap, then we started numbering thehouses and simultaneously anotherperson wrote the name of the familymembers in a paper. After that wecollected the occupational detailswhich are primary for their incomefor each and every household. Wealso collected the details ofhouseholds with electricity. Inbetween the process, the personswho carried on the process clarifiedwith the villagers who are gatheredin the place. Finally we thanked allthe participants and appreciated theparticipants in front of the villagers.

Outcome

From the social mapping wecould get more details about thehabitation pattern and socialinfrastructure of the village. The totalnumber of households in the villageis 119, of which 41 are thatched, 71are tiled, five are pucca (concretehouses) and two houses haveasbestos roof. We also got the detailsabout the occupationalclassifications of households 46 aredoing agriculture work, 69 are doinggem cutting and four householdsinvolved in mill work. We also gotthe details about the electricity facilityavailability in the village. Of the total119 households 38 households don’thave access to electricity in which19 households doing agriculturallabour works, 16 households involvein gem cutting in other houses and 3mill working households. The villagehave the infrastructure facilities suchas an over tank, a primary school,

six temples, ten street lamps and awater pump.

Inferences

From the mapping we couldconclude that the primary occupationof the village is agriculture and gemcutting. Most of the people in thatvillage are involving in gem cuttingand agriculture. There are sixtemples in that village and thevillagers are God fearing so they aregenuine in nature. If we look on thestructure of that village the housesare very congested and lack of spacefor cattle rearing. Road facilities arevery good inside the village but theconnectivity of the road from thevillage to main road is very poor. Itis so because a river is crossingacross the road which causes moredifficulties to the villagers in therainy seasons. This also affects theeducation of children who arestudying higher education outside thevillage. There is no sanitation facilityin that village. Open air defecation ispracticed which leads to manydiseases.

Possible Interventions

Road facility - Building a bridgeacross the river which can reducethe difficulties facing by the villagersin the rainy season and help thepeople to improve their connectivitywith the mainstream.

Electricity - Most of the peopledepend on gem cutting andagriculture it needs electricity. Soproviding electricity can improvetheir employment and increase theirincome.

Building transforms and streetlights - The street lamps in the villageare very limited and people are facingmore problems due to that in thenight time. People have own land dueto lack of transforms they can getthe electricity and improve theiroccupation.

Sanitation structure - Commonsanitation structure can be built toreduce open air defecation, whichis not good for health it can be doneby collective action.

23

Health perspective

Social mapping was conductedto understand the village indimensions of housing pattern,population details, livestock, andhealth issues in different aspects likepeople who are chronically ill,women and children health etc.

Objectives

Following were the objectives ofthe social mapping

Mapping the houses, villageinfrastructure and servicesaccording to people’sperception.Gathering information from thecommunity including details ofpopulation, livestock, andhousehold facilities and probingissues like chronically ill people,people affected with uteruscancer, weight of just bornchildren and health of lactatingmothers.

Mobilizing people

Mobilising people for the socialmapping was an interestingexperience. The time selected wasevening so that there could be moreparticipants. Initially there were noparticipants, so we divided ourselvesinto various groups and invited everyone we could see; we also went doorto door to invite every one to attendthe process. We involved children inamusing the villagers by allowingthem to run like a train shouting“come to the south part of the villageto enjoy”. This process attractedmany people and in the spot we alsoconducted some games for childrenwhich attracted some morepopulation to the spot.

Logistics

A place close to the spot wherehouses were more concentrated wasselected, the area was slightly clearedof the obstacles, colour powder,plastic coins of various colours,sticks to draw the lines etc. wereused in the process.

Process

Initially with the available crowdwe explained what this technique allabout is, what should be the outcomeof the process and how stepwise thetechnique will proceed. The crowdgot interested with this process andstarted interacting with uscohesively. We had a basic idea onhow the process should proceedwith an over all idea gained throughvarious techniques like transectwalk, resource mapping, time line,daily activity schedule, etc. First wefacilitated people to draw the housesbased on different roof typesfollowed by different infrastructurefacilities in the village. Then westarted enquiring details aboutdifferent age group people in eachhouse, meanwhile a group of

students started asking a smallergroup of people about differentdetails of each house hold whichslightly disturbed the process. Thenwe left the process of asking asmaller group of people andcontinued to interact with the wholegathering. After asking populationdetails, information about chronicallyill people, people affected with uteruscancer, underweight children, healthof the lactating mothers were asked.This was quite easy because only theparticular household needed to bespotted and unlike population detailsinformation on each house was notrequired.

As the time passed on more andmore people took part in the processand people were happy to look at asmall map of their village. But theprocess could not be prolonged as itwas already night. Finally we askedquestions in general about the healthissues like health of mothers, whythe chronically ill people suffered andconcluded the process.

Good practices

We were able to use theinformation gathered in the earlier

24

Particulars Tiled Thatched Cemented Asbestos

No of houses 32 6 7 3

Percentage 66 12 15 7

Details Male Female Sex ratio (F:M)

Total 136 12O 882:1000

Under 5 19 7 368:1000

5 to 18 36 33 917:1000

18-60 65 64 969:1000

More than 60 17 18 1059:1000

Particulars Status

Chronically ill 1 female

Uterus cancer 4 females ( 6.45% of total females in 18-64category)

Home delivery 1 out of 8 (12.5% of total deliveries in last year)

Under weight children 2 out of eight (25% of total deliveries in last year)

Lactating mothers 8

Pregnant women 3

techniques and conduct the socialmapping in a more focused manner.Though initially we could notmobilise a large enough crowd, weadopted various techniques (games,different kind of dance andrecording and request) to attractpeople and facilitated them toparticipate in the process. Finally theefforts gave results. Though we hadconfusions in the middle, we wereable to resolve it and managed thewhole process by making a separate

team to interact with a smaller groupof people.

Difficulties

The process did not start asplanned and we had to spend moretime on gathering the people. As westarted late we were also not able tofinish the exercise in time. The initialpopulation details to be gathered tooksome time and some people lookedbored. But overall we were able tocomplete the process in time.

No of participants

Initially few of them wereassembled to participate the socialmapping. After a short period of timelot of women and children wereparticipating in the social mapping.More than ten young girlsparticipated. Totally more than fortymembers participated in the socialmapping process; it includedchildren, adults, men women and oldage people.

Housing pattern

These are the housing pattern found from the socialmapping:

Primary data source: social mapping

Population Details

Through the table we can summarize the findings andable to say the first hand situation in terms of health.

Primary data source: social mapping

The sex ratio is very poor in case of less than 5 yearcategory and overall it is low except in case of morethan 60 year category which may lead to the doubt thatthere may be female infanticide but there is no suchreport in the village. Moreover it looks better in actualfigures than in ratio hence the population is balanced inthe village.

There are 26 (10%) individuals in below 5 categoryand 35 individuals (13.46%) in above 60 categories.Hence almost one fourth of the population is dependant

and 69(27%) of population is youth of the village whoare between the age of 5 and 18 and 129 (49.6%) are inthe age group in 18 to 60 and is actually the workingpopulation of the village. The village has a good balancedage wise population currently and can have a healthyeconomy in turn. There has been no deaths recorded inthe last one and a half years and it was also observedthat natural death was usual.

Health Issues

These are the issues came out from the discussion in

the social mapping

Looking at health issues only one lady is chronicallyill with multiple complaints like blood pressure, ulcer,blood vomiting, dizziness, etc... And there are no othersuch cases in the village. In general villagers are notsuffering from chronic diseases.

But looking at 12.5% of home delivery, 25% of underweight births in last one year it is clear that there is alack of institutional delivery and care, reproductive childhealth (RCH) is poor in the village. Lactating mothershad a normal health condition. Further there is incidenceof 6.45% of uterus cancer among village women; this

25

is a cause for concern as they havefaced medical expenditure forsurgery. The medical cause behindthis is not clear and necessary stepshave to be taken to reduce itsincidence.

42% of people cook outside thehouse and due to windy nature ofthe village it is cannot be consideredas a healthy practice but it actuallysaves women from smoke. 100%open defecation is followed eventhough four houses have in buildtoilets. Only one house ha directwater pipe connection and peopleuse four hand pumps, two syntaxtanks, 37 wells and an over headtank for drinking water purposes. Butpeople use the over head tank waterpipe connections for washingpurposes which is not a healthypractice. But people are much moredependant on the wells for drinkingwater purposes and they don’t washor bath with the water from thewells which is a healthy practice.The water from wells is also goodand not salty. There are enough streetlights except for one part of thevillage where there is no electricityconnection. But a solar lamp servesthe purpose for nine households.

75% of the population has access toeither T.V. or radio and there is acommon T.V. in the village.

Livestock

81% of the house holds rear henswhich are primarily for consumptionhence it is a good supplement interms of nutrition. 69% of houseshad one or two cows which was alsoprimarily for consumption hence itis also a good nutritional supplement.54% of the houses reared goats andamong them only 12.5% had morethan 10 goats. Hence it is clear thatall live stock in the village is a goodsource of nutrition for the villagersrather than for a commercialpurpose.

Possible Interventions

Focus on institutional deliveryand reproductive child health

The under weight children andoccurrence of home delivery evenin today’s world is a disturbing fact.It needs to given importance andbetter awareness has to be extendedin case of reproductive child health.Moreover transport facilities foremergencies like delivery must beplanned and made available.

Focus on better child nutrition

Children under 5 have to go forAnganwadi which is 2.5 km awayand face difficulty in accessing it.Further if nutritional services likesupplementary food are providedwithin the village better nutritionalstatus can be attained among villagechildren.

Sensitization for sanitation

People have little concern foropen defecation and there is oneparticular area in where defecationis concentrated hence possibilities ofinfection are higher. People need tobe sensitized regarding propersanitation and the Panchayat may beprompted for construction ofsanitary complex or individualhousehold toilets as per the currentschemes.

Intensive livestock

Livestock rearing had been atraditional livelihood. People can beencouraged to take up livestocklivelihood initiatives for better incomeand nutrition.

Reflection

The social mapping process gavea broader understanding of the healthissues in the village with specificityto those affected. We felt thoughthere were not any serious healthconcerns that were alarming, but wealso felt that the village people weregetting less than normal service thanwhat they should be getting. Oncethe process was over people felt thatthey had got clarity on differenthealth issues that existed in thevillage.

26

Technology Matters

Community Radio, a tool for Development

B. Muthukumarasamy*

Information 4 Development

The rural poor lack access toinformation that is vital to

their lives and livelihoods, abouthealth, about the structure andservices of public institutions, andabout their rights. They lack politicalvisibility and voice in the institutionsand power relations that shape theirlives. They lack access toknowledge, education and skillsdevelopment that could improvetheir livelihood. They often lackaccess to markets and institutions,both government and societal thatcould provide them with neededresources and services. They lackaccess to, and information about,income-earning opportunities

Radio: as a tool for Development

India has a very rich tradition ofmusic and radio. The extremecultural diversity creates endlessvarieties of styles. Each region hasits own particular style. The musicand radio are indispensablecomponent of functions such asweddings, engagements, and births.There is a plethora of songs for suchoccasions. There are also manysongs associated with planting andharvesting. In these activities thevillagers routinely sing of their hopes,fears and aspirations. Music andRadio mingled with their day to dayactivities. Radio acts as an effectiveInformation and CommunicationTechnology (ICT) tool for educatingthe rural masses and spreading themessages for enabling thecommunity.

Community Radio

Community Radio has played arevolutionary role in developmentcommunications worldwide sincethe late 70s, especially in Africa, LatinAmerica, and North America. Oflate, community radio has beenheavily discussed in South Asia, andin 2006, the Government of Indiahas release community radio for thefirst time.

The traditional developmentapproach has been a top downapproach focusing on creatingawareness to the community in thehope that critical information willtrickle down and communitymembers will automatically absorbinformation important to them.However, it has been proved thatcommunities need a participatoryapproach, where they make thedecisions about what is necessary

for their lives.Technology mediatedapproaches are often inappropriatefor the community in question.Community radio is the low costtechnology model which addressesaccess issues of the poorest of thecommunities. Further, it eventranscends literacy gaps, and isknown to encourage participationfrom all kinds of communities.

Community Radio with Village

Information Centers (CR with VICs)

It is proven that VillageInformation Centers can offervariety of services to enable the poorcommunity. Community radiocombined with the VillageInformation Centres couldcontribute more for development

DHAN Foundation hasestablished 20 Village InformationCenters (VIC) at Kottampatti. Each

* B. Muthukumarasamy, Senior Project Executive, DHAN Foundation, ICT Theme, Kottampatti, Madurai

27

Vayalagam Vanoli Daily ProgrammeSchedule

Time Minutes Topics Remarks

10.00-10.15 AM 15 Thirukural and Moral Statements for the Day Live

10.15-10.30 AM 15 Village Events, Announcement and Greetings; Live

11.00-11.15 AM 15 Women Time – Information about SHG meetings,Resolutions, Recipes tips, Government schemes, etc Recorded

11.15-11.30 AM 15 Rural Life – About Rural Life Recorded

04.00–04.15 PM 15 Story Time Recorded

04.15-04.30 PM 15 General Knowledge, Information Recorded

05.00-05.15 PM 15 Rural Agriculture Time Recorded

05.15-05.30 PM 15 Rural Health Time Recorded

05.30-05.45 PM 15 Rural Kids Time Live / Recorded

05.45-06.00 PM 15 Community Songs Recorded

06.00-06.15 PM 30 Special Programme Recorded

VIC is equipped with one computersystem, web camera, printer, etc.The Village Information Centers areproviding various rural ICT serviceslike computer education, computeraided school education , videoconference on agriculture, animalhusbandry, health, legal , etc.,. As aknowledge building initiative, thesecenters are also showing offlinecontent on agriculture, live stockmaintenance, health, education, etc.The Thagavalagam VillageInformation Centers are acts as aneffective tool for informationdissemination in the rural areas.These centers are having greatnumber of regular ICT users fromthe rural community. Hence, as apilot, it is proposed to establish theVayalagam Community Radio atKottampatti. The Madurai TankFarmers Association functioning atKottampatti is establish the“Vayalagam Samuga Vanoli” and itis proposed to generate anddisseminate the Vayalaga SamugaVanoli audio content through the

Village InformationCenters (VIC).

Process of Radio

Programme Production

and Dissemination

Village Informationcenter operators are actsas a Community Reportersfor the Vayalagam SamugaVanoli Programme. Theywere given training toorganize the community toparticipate in the programme,producing the audio content, editingthe content and deploying throughPublic Addressing System (PAS).They were also given exposure visitto local FM stations. Needassessment workshops wereconducted to access the radioporgramme need of the ruralcommunity and specifically locationspecific needs were identified andprogrammes were designed suitablefor the need. The radio programmesare produced at the Village level andnarrowcasting also done from the

VICs. Some of the commonprogramme produced by oneoperator is shared among the othervillages.

Narrow-casting through the VICs

The Radio programmes arerecorded at the Village InformationCenters and at field level. Therecorded programme are edited andnarrow-caste through the PAS.There is a regular radio programmenarrowcasting schedule at the VillageInformation Centers. The followingis the schedule followed by theVillage Information Centers for theVayalagam Samuga Vanoli.

28

Community Participated Vayalagam Vanoli Programme

The Village Information Center operators organizing the local community to participate in the radio programme.The Kalanjiam, Vayalagam group members, Panchayat presidents, clerks, village heads, school teachers, schoolgoing students, rural youth, women and farmers were participated in our various radio programme.

The Pilot Output

The following table shows the list of major audio content topics (as on 30/04/2009)

Sl. No. Topics Total Hours of content

1. Disaster and Management 92. Community Songs 153. Rural Life 124. Rural Health 275. Rural Information 96. Rural Industries 17. Rural Agriculture 198. Rural Festival, Temples and customs 29. Rural Education 610. General, Women & SHG 1911. Spiritual Songs 612. General Knowledge 1013. Women Time 8 hrs 30 mins.14. Children Time 5 hrs 30 mins.

Total 149

A Case @ Katchirayanpatti

Vayalagam Samuga Vanoli:

I am working in KatchirayanpattiVillage Information Center for thepast one year. I came to know that,every year, the center is organizingthe Pulse Polio Campaign with thesupport of the Sub Primary HealthCenter, which is opposite to myVillage Information Center. Since,our panchayat is very big, the PulsePolio Campaign on 21.12.2008 washeld in 3 places in our panchayat.

It was about 2.30 PM in theafternoon, Villagers got a rumor that,a child at Tiruppur died because ofthe pulse Polio and more children aregetting serious health problems. Thevillagers slowly started approachingmy center and asking about theissue. I and the village PHC staffnurse explained the villagers that, it

was just a rumor and no need to getany tension or bother about that.Even after our several timeexplanations, the villagers were notgot satisfied and planned to arrangea vehicle and take all the children toKarungalagudi Government Hospital.

I contacted the KarungalagudiGovernment Hospital over phone(We have a collection of publicorganization phone number in ourvillage information center database)and explained the situation. He alsoassured that, that is only a rumor andthere was no such case inKottampatti Block. He asked me totake this information in a broad wayand avoid them to come to GH. Headded that, already there were 5000villagers from different villagesregarding the same problem. But,there would not be such case in ourblock.

Hence, I started announcingthrough Community Radio that, theinformation from the GovernmentHospital says that, “The Informationis only a rumor, there is no such casein our block, all children are safe andif there is any continuous vomitingor diarrhea for the children, pleasecome to the Hospital. Otherwise, noneed for come to hospital and waitingoutside for so many hours”. I didthis announcement for more than 25times, after that the villagers becamerelaxed and returned to their home.I would like to say that, myannouncement through theCommunity Radio not only helpedthe villagers to get relax and avoidunnecessary travel and tension. Thevillagers have a belief system in thevillage and people are responding forour general announcement.

29

*Tata-Dhan Academy, Madurai, Tamil Nadu

Disaster Management

The Advanced Centre for Enabling Disaster Risk

Reduction (ACEDRR)

The ACEDRR is a specializedcentre established at the Tata

– Dhan Academy by DHANFoundation with the support ofOxfam America. The centre aimsat enhancing the knowledge andpractice on disaster risk reduction(DRR) by working with peoples’organisations, non-governmentand government organisations,technical institutes, research andacademic institutes and fundingagencies.

The mission of ACEDRR is toprovide evidence basedknowledge for enabling integrationof disaster risk reduction inmainstream development andencourage community drivenmodels and solutions forsustainability of disaster riskreduction. The centre aims tobecome a centre of excellence inthe field of disaster risk reductionthrough –

• Building and sharingknowledge gained frompractice

• Pioneering in research,networking and policyadvocacy

• Encouraging innovations andaction

Many institutions and NGOsare working in the field of disasterrisk reduction. The centre will jointhem in advancing their efforts bynegotiating with complex theoriesas well as understanding andaddressing ground realities.

• Creating knowledge system oftime tested and provendevelopment experiences; thisenhances its capability todevelop and demonstratewidely applicabledevelopment models thatintegrate DRR

• The centre will provide aplatform to identify,appreciate and nurture thelocal knowledge and wisdomin disaster management. It willencourage the practitionerspromoting collective action ininfluencing state and nationalpolicies in tune with thecommunity aspiration andneeds.

Additionally, there is dire needfor the decisions support tools andpeople trained to use these tools

at all levels. At the participatoryplanning level, there is the need forpeople with special skills, attitudesand aptitudes who can facilitate theplanning process. ACEDRR willhelp nurturing such people and getthem linked to the needs. Aboveall, ACEDRR is a centrecommitted to enabling disaster riskreduction.

ACEDRR, as a centre forlearning will

• Document the good practicesand DRR models already inexistence and will disseminatethis knowledge to a wideaudience.

• Experiment with, develop anddisseminate various tools,techniques, and models forDRR.

• Create and maintain a DRRdatabase which will cater tothe needs of professionals,institutions and thecommunity.

• Involve community basedresearch and policy researchand policy research in the areaof disaster risk reduction.

Centre for Development CommunicationDHAN Foundation

18, Pillaiyar Koil Street, S.S. Colony, Madurai - 625 016. Tamil Nadu, INDIA

Tel.: +91 - 452 - 4353983, 2610794, 2610805 Fax: +91 - 452 - 2602247

Email: dhanfoundation_tn@airtelmail.in Website: http://www.dhan.org

Ensuring Food Security

MDGs in Practice: 1. Eradicate extreme poverty and hunger

2009Credit for consumption:

Credit for production:

Supporting the needy:

The

Kalanjiams have issued loans

amounting to Rs.113 million for

consumption needs, primarily for food.

Vayalagams and

Rainfed farmers' groups have lent

Rs.202 million for various agricultural

production needs

The Kalanjiam

Movement motivates its member

families to save handful of rice each

day and share with the needy as an

expression of their humaneness

“

”

ight to food is a basic right for all and is an integral part of the right to life enshrined

Rin the Indian Constitution as well as the Universal Declaration of Human Rights.

DHAN's Kalanjiam enabling model of microfinance lays primacy on providing a separate

line of credit for consumption and emergencies; otherwise the poor families will liquidate

even the meager productive assets they possess. The Vayalagam tankfed and Rainfed

farming development programmes work for augmenting food security of the small and

marginal farmers by securing water availability, improving crop water use efficiency, zero

budget natural farming, facilitating collective trading of farm inputs and outputs, ensuring

credit and insurance services and other agro based interventions.