ICRISAT Archival Report 2006 - The seedlings of success in the ...

guidelines were understood from project documents and discussions with key informants. Informal arrangements
and manifestations of formal arrangements were captured by studying two sample watersheds in each of the
programs. Data collection was from groups of representatives (661 stakeholder representatives were interviewed
from 4 watershed projects, 8 watershed villages located in 7 districts and 4 states) from each stakeholder category. It
was ensured that each group of respondents consisted of more than 30% of the total members of the stakeholder
category.
The studies revealed that for sustaining effective institutions in villages for watershed development financial
activities benefiting the members are critical. In the absence of financial activities in User Groups (UGs) neither the
group members met regularly nor did they take any interest in maintaining hydraulic structures in the watersheds.
The SHGs who operated micro-financing at community level were active, ensuring group momentum. Some of the
other key findings are:
• Detailed studies of the institutional arrangements in four programs adopting novel approaches revealed that
the new institutional arrangements adopted helped in improving community participation and equity to a
certain extent. However, the foremost important finding is that the basic purpose of ensuring participation
of all the stakeholders and harmonization between Panchayat Raj Institution (PRI) and Watershed
implementing Agency (WIA) is far from reaching the objective of ensuring benefits for women in the
watershed programs. Higher representation of women in the Watershed Committee along with the
targeted income-generating activities is necessary. For sustainable participation of the landless labourers,
even after completion of the project specific targeted income generating activities for these vulnerable
groups are needed. In the absence of such income generating activities even their representation on the
Watershed Committee did not benefit these groups and as a result their participation gradually decreased.
• The Area Group (AG) concept adopted in the Sujala watershed program was found effective for enhancing
primary stakeholders participation and the existing institutional mechanism of UGs adopted in DPAP and
IGWP and other programs was not sustained as these groups did not have a continuing role in the
watershed management and with time their interest declined considerably affecting the sustainability of the
institution.
• The innovative institutional approaches adopted by these new generation development programs have
moved in the right direction except for the Hariyali program. However, still much needs to be achieved in
terms of harmonizing functions of various institutions operating in the village for achieving the desired
impact of watershed programs in India.
• As the Hariyali Guidelines are already under criticism by some sectors and the current study also revealed
that the basic purpose of enhancing community participation, as well as equity for women are far from
satisfactory. There is an urgent need to improve the watershed guidelines in India by targeting Common
Watershed Guidelines for all the watershed Programs as well as keeping the WIA independent of political
institutions and ensuring harmonization of the functioning of PRI and WIA. The SWP provides a better
institutional model for revising the guidelines suitably to ensure better stakeholder participation and issues
of women and landless members need to be addressed using the better examples from the APRLP and
IGWP.
• At the national, state and district level also there is an urgent need to revise the institutional arrangements
as indicated by the National Farmers Commission suggesting an apex body at national level headed by a
technocrat with membership from the Secretaries representing different ministries supporting the watershed
programs and subject matter experts. Similar recommendations are also made in the recent report titled
“From Hariyali to Neeranchal” of the Technical Committee on Watershed Programs in India constituted by
the Ministry of Rural Development. The Prime Minister has already formed the National Rainfed Authority
and new guidelines for the Watershed Programs will evolve soon.
Milestone 7B.2: Working paper on institutional options and strategies for enhancing collective action and
groundwater management in watershed communities.
7B.3: Impact of watershed interventions on employment generation, income, poverty and migration, at
Goverdhanpura-Gokulpura watershed, Bundi P Pathak, AK Chourasia, SP Wani, SN Singh and S Raghavendra Rao
Through an integrated approach with technical backstopping, productivity enhancement and income-generating
activities were superimposed on conventional watershed programs.
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