Karnataka - Bidar   

There are no floods here

Rishikesh Bahadur Desai

PAYING DIVIDENDS: The Bidar model multiple arch buttress check-dam in Shahapur in Bidar taluk

Bidar: Makkalu Undare Kedalla, Male Bandare Kedalla ("No harm is done if children eat well and if it rains well") — this is a famous saying in north Karnataka. This is exactly true of Bidar. Thanks to the low-cost check-dams that help retain rainwater, people here are never tired of praying for a little more rain. While other districts in this part of the State are wondering when the downpour will end, there is no problem of flooding or waterlogging anywhere in Bidar. Though the district has received 135 per cent of annual average rainfall this year, its 450 check-dams seem to be gulping every drop of it.

"This is a silent revolution. We have tackled multiple problems in the villages by building check-dams. Groundwater level has gone up and agriculture yield has increased. The economy of the villages has improved and there is marked decrease in migration," says Bidar Zilla Panchayat Health and Education Committee member Rajshekar Murthy. "We have set aside Rs. 16 crore for water conservation works in the zilla panchayat's annual budget this year. Half of this will be spent on constructing 400 check-dams," he says. He informed that teams from Gujarat and Orissa had visited the district to study the pre-fabricated arch buttress structures, popularly called "Bidar Model" check-dams. The Bidar Zilla Panchayat engineering division has built 450 check-dams under the Swarna Jayanti Gram Rozgar Yojana and drought relief. Another 450 are being built under the National Rural Employment Guarantee Scheme and other programmes.

The check-dam in Chitta in Bidar taluk has brought smiles on the faces of farmers. "It has changed our lives," says Sangappa Bheemrao, a farmer from Chitta Wadi, a village downstream of the check dam. "We used to envy farmers in neighbouring Maharashtra who had irrigation facilities and grew multiple crops. We grew a single crop with difficulty. However, with the check-dam upstream, all the open wells in the village are full. Now there is so much water in our wells that we can irrigate our fields and also have sufficient drinking water," he said.

Syed Ahmed, a farmer from Shahapur, said the water impounded by the multiple arch check-dam in the village is used for many purposes. "We take cattle to drink water there. Children bathe here." Three farmers in the village dug borewells after the check-dam was constructed 18 months ago. Since then, no borewell has dried up in the surrounding area," he said. Bidar model check-dams are built at one-eighth the cost of traditional check-dams. The cost of construction of these cement concrete structures is only 2,800 a square metre.

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