The Hindu : Participatory approach to benefit farmers

Online edition of India's National Newspaper
Thursday, Feb 12, 2004

Andhra Pradesh

Andhra Pradesh

Participatory approach to benefit farmers

By Our Staff Reporter

NIZAMABAD, FEB. 11. The technical adviser to the Andhra Pradesh State Water Conservation Mission, T. Hanumantha Rao, has said that an innovative participatory technology in watershed development has been introduced in all the 7,100 watersheds in the State.

Participating in a technical workshop on Neeru-Meeru, organised by the District Water Management Agency at the TTDC training centre at Dichpalli mandal headquarters on Wednesday, Mr. Hanumantha Rao, who is also the United Nations (OPS) consultant, said that the new technology was participative as farmers who were members of the watershed committees could formulate works and execute the same with their own initiatives, without the help of engineers and scientists.

The District Collector, D.V. Raidu, and the District Water Management Agency Project Director, Rammohan Rao, and officials from the irrigation, agriculture, watershed committees and municipalities participated in the day-long workshop.

He said that technology, evolved by him, was brought out in the shape of type designs and ready reckoner tables. The technology, named `Four Waters Concept' -- rainwater, soil moisture, groundwater and surface water -- was optimised in this concept. This was developed by integrating the proven aspects pertaining to five scientific disciplines, namely agriculture, soil conservation, groundwater, surface water and geo-engineering.

Mr. Hanumantha Rao said that the technology was first introduced in Hebei province of China and later in India. The advantages of the technology were that with the same cost it was possible to increase the benefits by three times. Cost effective works and vegetative measures had been introduced in this concept.

The former Irrigation Engineer-in Chief said when the technology was implemented, the mainstream in the watershed of 500 hectares would become perennial and surface water gravity irrigation could be done through rough stone diversions structures, costing about Rs. 4,000 each. This would ensure that the rainfall run-off of flood flow in the stream would be less turbid than the earlier muddy flows, which indicated the success of soil conservation works and vegetative measures implemented.

Mr. Hanumantha Rao said that all the dug wells in the watershed in the upper catchment areas would have groundwater in summer as compared to the earlier phenomenon of dug wells getting dried up by the end of December.

Thirty per cent of the rain-fed lands could be given irrigation facilities for one ID crop in normal year. Water resources would be available within the watershed to meet the essential requirements even during a drought year, he added. The `Four Waters Concept', which was quite different from the earlier concept, when implemented had resulted in drought-proofing the watersheds in Medak, Chittoor, Mahabubnagar and Nalgonda districts during the worst drought year.

Farmers did not migrate as they had enough water resources even in January 2003. The three social advantages of the new concept was that the upland area farmers got the same benefits as the valley farmer, thus ensuring equity between the poor and the not so poor farmer. The Collector said that a master plan was being prepared for all the 36 mandals in the district and based on the study of contours necessary structures would be constructed.

The DWMA Project Director said the workshop had been organised to give an orientation to officials associated with various departments in the implementation of the water conservation programme.

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Andhra Pradesh