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

i. Poverty and income distribution: Before the watershed program most people in Goverdhanpura-Gokulpura
watershed were suffering from malnutrition and chronic poverty. The overall development in the watershed has
radically changed the scenario of watershed villages. Various poverty indicators during pre and post watershed
development are shown in the Table 7B3.
Table 7B3. Status of poverty before and after watershed interventions in Goverdhanpura-Gokulpura villages,
Bundi, Rajasthan, India
Land holdings (ha)
Before watershed interventions
After watershed interventions
Indicators Reflection 4 4
No. of
152 125 36 21 208 173 23 14
household
Head count Incidence 0.13 0.09 0.054 0.027 0.0058 0.038 0.034 .005
Ratio
Poverty gap Depth 0.065 0.048 0.028 .014 0.024 0.014 0.007 0.001
Index
Square poverty
gap Index
Severity 0.034 0.023 0.009 0.002 0.010 0.005 0.001 0
The head count ratio in the case of marginal and small farmers fell from 0.13 to 0.0058 and .09 to .038 respectively
indicating larger benefits than for large land holding farmers. The depth of poverty gap is also down in all categories
of farmers. After the watershed interventions the head count ratio among all categories of farmers declined
significantly and in case of large farmers it is only 0.005, which indicates that the proportion of the population below
poverty line is much reduced.
In addition to conventional watershed activities, several additional income-generating activities were carried out in
the integrated watershed program implemented under the Tata-ICRISAT-ICAR project, which brought significant
increase in farm as well as non-farm income to the farmers. Inter-crossed analysis of data reveals that the farm
income of male farmers in all categories of land holding increased gradually but in the case of medium and large
farmers the rate of increment was higher than for marginal and small farmers. However, in the case of small and
marginal female farmers the incremental rate was higher which could be due to their participation in the SHGs
undertaking income-generating activities (Table 7B4).
After the watershed development program the farm income of male farmers in the medium and large category
increased by 62.5 percent and 58.5 percent respectively whereas it was only 23.5 percent and 39.6 percent in the
case of marginal and small farmers. The increments of farm income of female farmers were quite low. However, the
increments are higher in case of marginal (21.7%) and small (28.2%) as compared to medium (11.4%) and large
(6.1%) female farmers.
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