Recasting Citizenship for Development - File UPI

Restructuring the Employment Guarantee Scheme 153
Nobody is willing to sell water in the summer. Last year when there was a
shortage of drinking water, then the people pressurised a farmer to cut
his water to the sugarcane fields and provide for drinking water to the
villagers.
As you said, we understand that we can take intercrops such as peanuts or
sunflower, so that we can get some income in the gestation period of plantation.
But that also requires some water.
I have 40 mango trees. Last year I purchased water in summer and paid
Rs 100 every week for eight weeks and took care that my three-year-old
plants survived. I personally watered each tree with a pitcher. We kept
earthen pots at the roots of every plant and filled these pots so that it
acted as a drip. It takes hard work but in the long run it is beneficial.
In my village there is a borewell owned by the panchayat and as long as
light (electricity) is there, water continues to flow and gets wasted. I always
feel that if we use that water and channel it to the plantation we can do
wonders.
In my village, no hand pump works anymore. They have dried up. Where
can we get water? There is no community well. Only some farmers have
private wells. There is land but no water.
There is a storage tank built on the land of our village but it is far away
and we cannot access it easily but the villages downstream are able to
access it and they have built lifts on that tank. Our gram panchayat is very
lazy. You must help us to get that water.
Women in our village are very hardworking. We can make the orchard a
success if we get water. Along with saplings, if the agriculture department
also provides us with water facilities, then we can grow an orchard.
The women of Balajinagar Lamantanda (a hamlet of a nomadic tribe)
said that there was a small tank in the village, but they suspected that the
gram panchayat would not allow them to draw water from it. The sarpanch
of Ansurda was willing to give land as well as water to women members
of the SHG. He insisted that two acres of land could be brought under
plantation first and, once it was found successful, more land could be
made available. Water shortage is a real thing. Massa village women were
optimistic, and said, If we use drip like saline bottles very little water would