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Our steed from Ahmednagar was a black fur-seated motorbike, which WOTR sta, Santosh Chaudhari and I drove for more than an hour to Kaluchi Thakarwadi. No government ocial had ever bothered to visit this remote settlement in Parner block of Ahmednagar. How could they? There was no road. Only trained people can reach there, says Santosh. He tells me that barely 3 years ago, this was but a winding foot trail, trod only by 3 kinds of trained travellers: One, people from far ung settlements like Kaluchi Thakarwadi walking all the way to medical help or other urgent work in the town; Two, shepherds and their cattle- sheep, goats and a few cows; and Three, WOTR- Wasundhara project sta like him, who had been driving to the Thakarwadi on their motorbikes regularly and precariously since 2006. As we left the noisy town of Ahmednagar, I could see signs of a struggle going on. Sudden glimpses of brown and yellow ashed behind and between semiurban buildings and clumps of forest department planted forests. As we turned o the highway at the village of Bhalawni, the Pathaarnally won over human construction. The Pathaar - Maharashtras semi-arid grassland triumphantly stretched on for the next 10 kilometres. Not a single house or farm, barely a tree, just exposed brown, black and grey rock and yellow grass, undulating into the horizon, on either side of the road. The Pathaar, beautiful and eerie in its apparent lifelessness, is in fact home to a variety of birds all the year round and to the Dhangar community in the monsoons. This vibrant, nomadic, shepherd community of Maharashtra, return from the plains with the monsoons to the Pathaar, when
the yellow grass turns green- perfect grazing grounds for their sheep and goats. At this time, in January, we could only see signs of their seasonal settlements- abandoned stone enclosures, awaiting animals and small stone temples, awaiting worship. While driving, Santosh told me his story. Dhavalpuris VWC (Village, Watershed Committee) formed under the IGWDP (Indo German Watershed Development Program) went on to become SHWVAS- Shree Hanuman Watershed Vikas Sanstha, an NGO working in Watershed Development. Santosh had been a member of the VWC right from his student days. Though a Masters in History, Santosh became a Watershed man and was part of the core team of SHWVAS. When they were contacted by the Gram Panchayat of Kaluchi Thakarwadi, SHWVAS teamed up with WOTR to implement the WOTR Wasundhara program there.
After passing Dhavalpuri and Santoshs own jowar elds, we reached the black bed of the Kalu river, from which this settlement gets its name. Of course there would be no water in the river now, I assumed. But to my astonishment, the river owed happily over a neat little check dam. This check dam is a low-cost one, costing only around Rs. 1.5 lakh. It has been made without a foundation; iron rods inserted into the concrete at intervals of 1 m in a zigzag fashion hold it together. Small pumps attached to pipelines wind their way across the rock directly to parched elds and provide irrigation that enables a 2nd, even a 3rd crop a year, where under 5 years back, barely 1 crop had been possible. The new road brought connectivity and the check dam brought water, both crucial tothe current development of this Thakar adivasi settlement on the banks of the Kalu river.
the project.People thought they would be tricked out of their lands by the NGOs. I said, Let them take the bloody land if they want to! What does it yield anyways? I dont mind trying anything to bring water, grins Rambhau. Rambhau laughs out merrily remembering how in the beginning, water runos owed freely and forcefully over exposed rock, entered elds and washed away farm bunds, stealing away even the meagre topsoil. People migrated because there was no water for agriculture and because there was nothing other than agriculture that people could do to live. There was no water even to drink in the summer months. So tackling water scarcity was the key. So under WOTR Wasundhara, Soil and Water Conservation measures were undertaken rst. With Rambhaus eorts, 10 families including his were able to contribute a little bit of cash and a lot of labour in laying a 1400 m long pipeline from the check dam. Bringing such a scattered community come together and do Shramdaan (voluntary labour) was a more herculean task than the actual labour. But the eorts of the people were rewarded when water levels rose in their wells and the pipeline brought water to their elds. Hand-pumps were installed for drinking water. WOTR also provided help with better agricultural techniques like drip and sprinkler irrigation and crop demonstrations.
When news of water reaching theirwadi reached them, Kaluchi Thakarwadis scattered families came back, incredulous and ecstatic that they could stay and work in their own homes. In the rst year of the project, people ensured their food security by growing their own food on their rejuvenated elds. But now people have started cultivating cash crops too. The best yield I remember from before was 3 sacks of Bajra; this time I got 12 sacks. Water and fertilisers have done magic, he beams. This time Rambhaus proud smile is not out of place. But this story is not without a twist in the happy ending. Rambhaus son, just like many other youths from the area is strangely not farming with his parents. He has gone with his friends to work at a brick kiln. Its his friends, you see Do I see Rambhaus smile drop just a little bit? Besides I am here to do the farming. He wants the ready cash. He will work the farm after me We did what we could for the future. But who can say about young people these days ? His laugh is back with a tinkle. History doesnt have to repeat itself, it seems. Well, at least not exactly.
Electric Blues
In our conversations, I tried to really understand why farmers like Jhumbarbai and Kisanbhau would say this. Often asking questions that must have made them have serious doubts about my intelligence, but left no doubt about my ignorance, I tried to see the multiple levels and facets of issues they face. And I felt like I was in some absurd, tragi-comic play. Take for instance, their lands. During British and soon after independence, adivasi farmers in the area had been ned by the government for encroaching forest lands. They paid a then princely sum of Rs.3 as a ne to the court. In the 70s and 80s this very same ne receipt (a scrap of paper preserved by families all these years) became proof of land ownership! It proved that these families were tilling that patch of land and now according to new legislation of tiller is owner, the adivasi encroachers owned this land. These adivasi lands cannot be sold or bought, which is a blessing; there had been instances of drunken deals in which lands were sold o to get cash for a few more drinks.
Now the WOTR Wasundhara project brought water and Kisanbhau was thrilled that he could till all his land- the small patch near the river as well as these ne lands. WOTRs crop demos also trained people in cultivating a variety of crops. The road ensured accessibility. But happy endings are notoriously elusive. Today Electricity; rather the lack and uncertainty of it, has replaced Water as Kaluchi Thakarwadis number one problem. Even remote settlements like Manai are now nally on the grid. New transformers, electricity poles stand against the sky, conducting wires stretch across it, but there is no electric current pulsating through them; what there is, is of such poor voltage that even light bulbs glow dimly, let alone irrigation pumps or bore wells. WOTR installed solar lights installed 5-6 years back work much better for household illumination. There is electricity in most places for only 8 hours a day and not all of it is adequate voltage either. These 8 hours can be any 8 hours in the day or night. So like Jhumbarbai was telling me, farmers have to wake up at odd hours of the night to switch on and monitor the irrigation of their elds. Earlier the demand for electricity was low and governmental control ensured proper supply, though it was limited to a smaller area. Now the grid area has increased, but the Electricity Board has become a company with almost no governmental interference in its decisions. While the Electric Company has become stricter toward illegal siphoning of supply, there is no answer to how supply is going to meet the soaring demand. Whenever the voltage is high enough, everyone in the village switches on their pumps at the same time, over loading the
system and burning out transformers and pumps. A burnt out transformer is replaced only if bills are being paid regularly. But often connections are not strictly legal. All in all, irrigation and thereby agricultural production, is now the function of this erratic electric supply. When it comes to the village, nothing is simple. Everything is complicated and interconnected. Kisanbhau does not mince words while pointing out that the government policy of providing 24 hours electricity to Industry and only 8 hours to Agriculture clearly shows its real intentions, though there is a lot of talk about improving agriculture and the plight of farmers in India. Even in the markets, seed and fertiliser companies and big merchants get all the benets. Small farmers have absolutely no say in the prices of their own produce in the market. Government interventions in this sector are again dissatisfying. Basically, the input costs go up every year, with no guarantee of returns. This is indeed a big gamble our farmers play. No wonder they are losing sleep over it. On a more positive note, farmers of Kaluchi Thakarwadi are valiantly looking for solutions. These settlements are at the end of the substation and hence get the last dregs of supply. The villagers now plan to request for another supply line to their village. Kaluchi Thakarwadis story shows that potential prosperity is the greatest mobilising and motivating force for the most disadvantaged people. Kaluchi Thakarwadi has only one prayer: Let there be light!
it to him themselves. Kasam Mama has all his accounts in his head. He runs his business on his bicycle and on trust. The system harks back to a more real time perhaps a time when nancial transactions were not the only means of exchange between people. Times will change soon. Like the mountain to Mohammad, markets will come to Kaluchi Thakarwadi on its new road. Kasam Mamas son will have to decide if the trek is worth it. But for now, Kasam Mama has no complaints. He is still part of the life and landscape here. Santosh tells me, Kasam Mama was a great help in the initial days of the project, as a messenger between the community and SHWVAS. Again, perhaps a more real time a time when mobile phones and markets were not the only means of exchange between people.
Question Answers
I asked Rambhau Pardhe and Popat Bhale of Bhaledara settlement in Kaluchi Thakarwadi a lot of questions. How do they train their shepherd dogs? Where did Rambhaus son learn to make that ingenious partridge trap? I also enriched my Marathi vocabulary here. What is this called? What is the name for that? I got amused and enthusiastic answers for all these questions. (In these parts, sheep and goats are called jaI~apo; yaoDka or baailaMgaa means a male goat; jaavaLI is a male sheep; laaAaor, kak$ are sheep/ goat kids; while qaaD - as the name sounds, is a grumpy, old Grandma sheep.) But there are other things people were not very happy to talk about
Like: How soon do they marry their daughters o? At what age are their daughters-in-law already bearing children? What do girls who stop going to school after Class VII do all day? Why no one in the village- boy or girl- has studied more than Class X? Why is the food at the Adivasi ashram school nearby so bad that children drop out rather than stay there? How much money do people spend on private hospitals in Wankute? Why did onions fetch Rs. 20 this year, but only Rs. 6 last year? These questions dont have easy quiz question-answers. It is very unfair of me to expect even apart answer in one visit. Yet what one can sense in Kaluchi Thakarwadi is change. Like the Kalu river started owing again after the WOTR Wasundhara program, Kaluchi Thakarwadi has started talking after all these years of silence. We have to wait a bit to hear what it has to say.
Agricultural Productivity
Land under cultivation + land value
Financial Security
Food Security
70% to 20%
Migration Drudgery of women
to Watershed Development
38 ha. perenially irrigated land 30 ha. seasonally irrigated land 207 ha. land in use
Improved Soil quality Capacity & Institution Building Participatory approach
Availability of Fodder
Development of CBOs
VDCs
community
ABOUT WOTR
Watershed Organisation Trust (WOTR) is one of the premier NGOs tackling water scarcity, rural poverty, climate change adaptation and food insecurity in the drylands of India today. WOTRs specic objectives are to regenerate the natural ecosystem with a strong participatory, people-centric approach that will simultaneously repair the torn social-fabric of community; address the challenge of water-scarcity, recurring drought and low-agricultural productivity that results in starvation, chronic hunger and severe malnutrition in rural communities and create alternative, WOTR has specic competencies in Watershed Development and Natural Resource Management, Integrated Water Resources Management, Climate Change Adaptation, Rural Development, Community Mobilization, Gender and Womens Empowerment, Systems Development and Training and Capacity Building. In all, WOTR has carried out developmental work in over 2,500 villages in ve states - Maharashtra, Andhra Pradesh, Madhya Pradesh, Rajasthan and Jharkhand. In its 20 years since inception, it has organized over 1 ,100 watershed development and climate change adaptation projects, covering nearly 700,000 hectares and impacting nearly 1,000,000 people. Its involvement in over 8,300 womens SHGs, micro-nance, trainings and other initiatives have benetted over 100,000 women. Similarly, over 300,000 people from 27 states in India and 35 countries have participated in WOTRs Training and Capacity Building programs. WOTR has also published a number of Action Research Studies, lms and other communication materials.WOTR has assisted 184 NGOs/Project Implementing Agencies (PIAs)/ government agencies who are vital partners in WOTRs extensive developmental outreach.
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Content and photographs by: Radhika Murthy Designed by: New Concept Information Systems Pvt. Ltd. Published by: WOTR Communications