D+C Development and Cooperation (No. 1, January/february 2002, p. 24-26)

Reinventing Watersheds
Proposing a New Approach to India’s Rural Drought Problems

Sudhirendar Sharma

India’s substantial investment in rural development during the past five decades of the post-independence era has not produced a corresponding transformation on the ground. With the focus of development being largely sector specific, the impact has rarely reached the rural poor. Consequently, sustainable transformation of rural ecosystems with people’s participation has remained isolated and scattered.

People’s participation, the key to community-centered development, has remained largely stuck in the ‘you participate in my programme’ mode. As a result, for lack of community ownership the impact of investment in rural development and natural resource generation has not been effective and long lasting.

The recent impetus to support already-existing watershed development programmes is a policy response to reverse the prevailing malaise in integrated rural development programmes. The experiences, as of now, are quite varied, ranging from about a dozen very successful projects to a large number of non-effective ones. But wherever enterprising community groups had decided to better their circumstances with some external assistance, they were able to improve their socio-economic conditions considerably in a relatively short time span.

Watershed development programmes in India and worldwide are increasingly emphasising flexibility, participatory processes and institution building so as to fulfill “all the major demands of the Agenda 21’’ in one shot. While this is a major step towards sustainable development, people’s participation alone may not yield the desired results unless the process adequately addresses the key issues.

Large scale coverage
but poor impact

The Watershed Development Project (WDP), funded by India’s Ministry of Rural Areas and Employment, has been implemented since 1994–95 in about 10,000 watersheds in all the major states of the country. In addition to an estimated US $ 3.5 billion being invested for rehabilitation and development of micro-watersheds by the government, the World Bank, Danida, Sida, SDC, DFID and the Indo-German Watershed Development Programme (see also D+C 4/2001, pp. 8–13) are supporting WDPs through direct funding support as well. Watershed programmes are increasing being favoured by most of India’s state governments.

Of these projects, launched during the past six years, Andhra Pradesh state in the south of India accounts for 24 per cent with Madhya Pradesh, the central Indian state, a close second with a 17 per cent share of these projects. Uttar Pradesh (10 per cent), Gujarat (8.6 per cent) and Tamil Nadu (7 per cent) are the other states who figure prominently in the list. Ironically, several districts of both Andhra Pradesh and Madhya Pradesh are currently reeling under drought. However, it is not the coverage that is significant but the impact and the long-term sustainability of the projects.

Despite the best of donor support for soil and water conservation based on the watershed approach, land degradation continues unabated. A study by the Centre for Economic and Social Studies (Reddy, 2000) indicates that the rate of degradation of land in rainfed areas in the 1990s is likely to have proceeded at more than twice the rate observed in the 1980s, basically on account of uninterrupted soil erosion. Furthermore, the continuing shortage of drinking water in several states of the country clearly demonstrates that the existing interventions for drought proofing have failed to neutralise the overall processes of land degradation in rural areas.

Despite repeated failures, the thrust on WDPs has yet to fade way. Failure to evaluate the strategies and approaches adopted by these projects has in fact led to proliferation of WDPs in the country. With donor support clearly in its favour, most implementing agencies have found an easy escape route to hide failures. Lack of cross-referencing between donors has helped the implementing agencies continue to access resources despite failures of their previous projects.

Unless governments and donors wake up to this reality; appraise and evaluate current strategies; and set into motion approaches that will overcome the shortcomings, three decades of watershed development programmes will all be wasted away. Not counting on its technicalities, the watershed approach can be used as a political tool to eradicate poverty in rural areas.

Guidelines favour
fixed treatment recipe

The entire watershed development programme is based on guidelines that typically reflect the per hectare cost of land treatment. Though these guidelines get reviewed periodically, the review is often to accommodate cost escalations and to set revised targets. Fixed costs often disregard the wide variability in biophysical and socio-economic conditions. Consequently, most projects do not adapt to the local conditions. Fixed guidelines do not allow cross-learning among the wealth of approaches already existing.

Given the nature of current watershed projects, investment is channeled into diverse activities (both on-farm and off-farm) that often involve trade-off across resources as well as individual stakeholders. The increase in the number of activities is often to account for the previous lapses that exclude some of the biotic and/or abiotic resources from the intended benefits of the project. Consequently, the resultant impact is not only slow but at times not even tangible. With times and resources getting distributed thinly across several activities, it requires fine tuning between physical and social engineering for desired results.

A typical project may include several components under the following key areas of intervention: water resources development, socio-economic development, crop planning & agriculture, household energy, forestry issues and livestock & animal husbandry.

It is now clear that the watershed approach has gone much beyond the scientifically determined methods of soil and water conservation. In doing so, not only has per hectare cost of conservation gone up but also a range of diverse activities has come under its fold. Given this holistic approach, watershed development programmes have become more complex to implement than some of the individual component-based schemes. To give the existing WDPs a new focus, some donors have come up with `watershed plus’ – an improvisation over the existing watershed approach to accommodate livelihood concerns.

A recent study of a watershed project in Chhattisgarh state (Sharma 2001) revealed the predicament of the implementing agency to complete diverse activities within the stipulated time frame. Subsidies were uniformly spread, irrespective of a household’s economic status; and the distribution of benefits was determined largely by the land-base of the households rather than being based on negotiations between households. Such skewed distribution of benefits has impacted negatively on the project’s ownership and sustainability.

In contrast, a project like Sukhomajri (a village in the Shiwalik hills in north-west India in the state of Haryana, where an innovative watershed project was completed in the early 1980’s) used water as a community resource to help design a system that did not follow the inequity in land holdings and yet ensured water security for all. With rights over impounded water in the three check dams equally shared by both landed and the landless in the village, the benefits of rainwater harvesting were equally shared between the community. Furthermore, the project ensured that a portion of the incremental gain is ploughed back to create a social capital. Social capital, in the case of Sukhomajri, holds the key to the project’s long-term sustenance. Incidentally, the concept of creation of social capital has rarely been translated into the new generation watershed projects.

Unlike most projects, the landless in Sukhomajri village harvested the benefits of the project by selling their share of water to the needy. A sound land care system, based on the principle of social fencing, was not only capable of regenerating biotic resources but triggered a range of farm and non-farm activities as an outcome, which were not part of the original project design. It was then for the community to make informed choices for utilising the rejuvenated natural resources to their benefit.

The `watershed plus’ approach of incorporating a range of activities, on the other hand, puts pressure on resources and manpower for their timely execution. Though the diverse activities may add value to the project, it is often at the cost of innovation. Community watershed programmes currently under implementation demonstrate the need to slim the number of activities to adapt to local biophysical and socio-economic conditions and bring in innovative approaches that ensure reviving the community to nurture and utilise its natural resources on a sustainable basis.

Inequitable sharing leads
to poor sustenance

With the success rate of current technology-heavy watershed projects no more than 25 per cent, there is a need to re-visit and re-assess the entire strategy of the watershed approach towards drought proofing and food security.

A study in Gujarat (Shah 2001) found that checkdams, the most favoured technology for watershed projects, only benefited 15-16 per cent of the households directly. Whilst the benefits of checkdams are more or less sure, benefits to individual farmers from other structures such as stream plugs or contour bunds may not be so immediate and/or substantial. Yet, a significant portion of the entire project cost is invested in creating checkdams.

Though it depends on size and the catchment area, a majority of checkdams account for an average of 50 per cent of the entire project cost. The remaining funds get thinly distributed over other components of the project. Though projects are often abuzz with host of social activities including self-help groups, income-generating activities etc, the benefits get shared between few families only. Can a community that hasn’t benefited be expected to contribute towards sustenance of the project?

The baggage of activities in a watershed project has become too heavy. Reduction in the number of activities in favour of those that provide maximum benefit is being considered one option to bring down the per hectare cost of land treatment. Activities should get selected on the basis of their expense and impact in the project area. Since the community contribution (approximately 10 per cent) to the total project cost is a mandatory requirement by a majority of donors, choice of most-benefiting activities will give legitimacy to their (community) contribution as they will know the return on their investment. Once a value is attached to each activity, the community can be expected to plough back a portion of the incremental gain to create social capital.

Chakriya Vikas Pranali in Jharkhand state is one live example that is based on sharing of benefits in a continuous 1:3:3:3 sharing system: 10 per cent of the income goes to the village welfare fund meant for the villagers in dire straits; 30 per cent goes to the owner of the land from which the income is derived; 30 per cent to the tiller; and 30 per cent to the village fund for other socio-economic activities in the village.

Not only the reinvestment from the rejuvenated land resources helps sustain the system, it empowers the community to help spread and replicate the concept to nearby villages. In most other projects, the one-time investment is used to accomplish the project activities to the best of its abilities. Such projects rarely go beyond the `contractor’ approach of completing tasks, oblivious of what might happen to the project later.

Building watershed harvesting structures as part of the watershed development projects is a very easy task – any contractor endowed with a bit of money can do it. But building an effective structure, which starts off a process of self-management and self-regeneration in a village community, is a much more difficult task.

Watershed projects can gain a lot by paying attention to the revival of traditional water harvesting structures. Not only is this less costly, community’s contribution and participation is easily accomplished in such initiatives. Furthermore, reviving community structures leads to rebirth of community spirit and community management – an aspect on which substantial time and resources are spent in watershed projects.

Conclusion

If the continuing drought-like situation in western region of the country is any indication, India’s three decades of efforts to drought-proof the country through the watershed approach haven’t really worked. Failure of investments notwithstanding, substantial budgetary provisions have been made by the central and state governments for the rehabilitation and development of micro-watersheds.

The increased frequency of droughts has necessitated a fresh thinking on the watershed approach to drought proofing. There are limited options though. Doubts have already been expressed on the basic flaws in the design and implementation of watershed projects. Despite frequent review of the guidelines to incorporate compelling concerns, watershed projects fail to deliver the promised impact. Since the benefits of watershed projects do not get shared amongst a large number of households, its adoption by the community continues to remain a major concern. The technology-heavy nature of these projects on the other hand distances the community even further.

In contrast, projects that have done better in the recent past were based on community’s traditional water harvesting and conservation practices. Not only did these projects ensure better community participation, the cost of implementation was on the lower side, too. As these people-centred programmes benefit large sections of the society, its operation, management and sharing of benefits are based on equity and ecological principles.

In contrast, the WDPs show a clear hierarchy of benefits and beneficiaries, with households receiving irrigation benefiting most, followed by those getting on-farm treatments like field bunds, and the landless with or without livestock, receiving least. Since this hierarchical pattern is largely governed by the given geo-hydrological profile, superimposed on the existing structure of land ownership and associated water rights, the observed inequality in the distribution of project benefits is fairly obvious. What is particularly concerning is that these issues are treated as more or less structurally determined, rather than being placed at the centre of a participatory process. The need is to initiate negotiations between different beneficiaries and stakeholders.

  References
Reddy, Ratna. V (2000): Land Degradation in India: Extent, Costs, Determinants and Trends (mimeo), Centre for Economic & Social Studies, Hyderabad.
Sharma, S (2001): Where Every Drop of Rain Counts: Case Study on Natural Resources Regeneration and Management in Surguja district of Chhattisgarh, The Ecological Foundation, New Delhi.
Shah, Amita (2001): Who Benefits from Participatory Watershed Development? Lessons from Gujarat, IIED Gatekeeper Series 97, IIED, London.