The Hindu : National : Hindus, Muslims join hands to conserve water

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Monday, Apr 04, 2005

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National

Hindus, Muslims join hands to conserve water

By Gargi Parsai

GIRAD (WARDHA DISTRICT), APRIL 3 . Belying ominous warnings of future wars being fought over water, a Gandhian NGO has brought together Hindu and Muslim community in six villages in Wardha district here to jointly work for bringing water to this dry region. Starved of drinking and irrigation water despite being positioned near a dam, the two communities have joined hands with the Wardha-based Magan Sangrahlaya Samiti to develop the watershed for recharging water bodies and aquifers.

Village Girad in the heart of Vidarbha region is known for two things: a Muslim saint, Baba Farid's dargah, and acute water scarcity. The village shares its limited water resources with the nearly 20-lakh pilgrims from all communities who visit the dargah annually. The pilgrims can wash and bathe in the limited number of wells before visiting the dargah. Consequently, there is immense pressure on the few water bodies to cater to a population of 10,000 inhabitants in the cluster of six villages, including Girad in the Samudrapur block. As a daily chore, women here have to walk six kilometres twice a day to fetch four pots of water. Piped water supply comes once in three days for 10 to 20 minutes. People are reluctant to marry off their daughters in this village for lack of water. Enmasse migration has emptied four villages in this block. Chorvihira, Bhangapur, Nanhani and Dongargaon no longer exist.

In such a scenario, the Magan Sangrahlaya Samiti approached the Council for Advancement of People's Action and Rural Technology for funding and after approval, handpicked a local team of young, qualified civil engineers, agriculturists, foresters and social scientists. They were sent for training to various community water experts, including Anna Hazare, Rajinder Singh and Mihir Shah. On return the team made Girad their base. "We held gram sabha meetings in all of the six villages, approached every household and took their signed consent to begin work. The idea was to save every drop of water where it falls and to keep the village's money within the village itself. This worked very well,'' said Vibha Gupta, chairperson of the samiti.

Extraordinary effort

The next few steps speak of an extraordinary effort to involve the community right, from the shepherds who grazed cattle on the hillock, the village-based labour to the State Forest Department, Water and Agriculture officials. A village-based, women-oriented watershed committee was formed. "Mrs. Kazi is also a member,'' a beaming Kazi Karimuddin Faizuddin said.

"We persuaded the shepherds to restrict themselves to an earmarked area which they will replenish with grass and plantations. Then we formed a panel of village labourers who have thwarted all attempts by contractors to buy them off," said Prashant and Jaishree who head the field team. They make light of suffering waterborne diseases or getting bathed once in three days because of lack of water.

Vinita Patil, a vociferous Scheduled Caste member of the committee has had to bear the brunt of opposing local lobbies. Vested interests burnt down her meagre soybean produce this season. Being one of those who had some years ago sat on a "starvation fast" for water and the one spearheading a campaign against alcoholism, she is marked. "I am not going to give up till we get water," she says with an amazing determination.

"We villagers are with them. The contractors know that there is no commission here, nor any bribes nor any dinner parties of meat and alcohol, that is why they are trying to put a spoke," village elder and teacher, Baban Dabne, told The Hindu in Girad.

Adopting a scientific ridge-to-valley approach, the samiti earmarked a catchment of 2,500 hectares to work on. In just three months they made five major drainages around the hillock covering 35 km, 10 hectares of continuous trenches, 1,628 metres of water-arresting trenches, desilted four ponds, made several loose boulder checks and farm bunts. "Already in the last rainfall in January, we were able to arrest one-and-a half- foot of soil," said local agriculture expert, Babarao Borkute. In his estimate, village wells, springs and step-wells will recharge this monsoon. The challenge is to maintain them.

In true Gandhian mould, the samiti wants the gram sabhas to form a jalnidhi (water user fund) with a donation of Re. 1 from the pilgrims to maintain the structures, after they withdraw. They also want the dargah trust to prohibit stone quarrying and to fund the restoration of the hillock.

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