WATER POVERTY IN THE NORTHEASTERN HILL REGION (INDIA)

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WATER POVERTY IN THE NORTHEASTERN HILL REGION (INDIA): POTENTIAL ALLEVIATION THROUGH MULTIPLE-USE WATER SYSTEMSNAIP-ICAR experimental site for improved agricultural practices and irrigation(Photo credit: Bharat Sharma)structures have been constructed at different levels in the site to act as a reservoir of rainwater, butsuffer due to insufficient dimensions and delayed maintenance. There is an urgent need to increase thedimensions of these structures and also to build a few more in this site especially at the top for collectionof storage water for use during exigencies. Plantation of several horticultural trees like peach, lemon,mandarins and silvicultural trees like Hollock has also been done. The terraces have been planted withrice, maize, etc. and cassava and sweet potato have been planted along the slope. The villagers find thedemonstrations highly innovative and interesting and having high potential of livelihood improvement.Impact of these demonstrations on out-scaling to other sites may be available in later years.3.7 Water Resources at the Project Site (Village)Presently, there is only one developed water source which is located 0.5 km from the village. The sourceis baseflow water from the upper catchments. Water from this source is diverted through pipes to 5 water22
WATER POVERTY IN THE NORTHEASTERN HILL REGION (INDIA): POTENTIAL ALLEVIATION THROUGH MULTIPLE-USE WATER SYSTEMStanks which are constructed in various parts of the village. Water from these tanks is further distributedamong the households by way of GI pipes. The initial work for this distribution of water was done bythe NGO- World Vision. Further work on this front is being carried forward by ICAR, which has alsodiverted water to households by way of GI pipes. This small water supply scheme only partly meets thedomestic water needs.The average rainfall in Mon district during drymonths is very low and the water source runs dry.During these months the villagers have to rely onthe stream which flows further down the slope of thevillage. Collection of water during these dry periodsis very difficult since on an average, the villagershave to travel 630 m, that too on an uneven terrainto fetch water. It is not uncommon to find womenand children going to fetch water from nearby tapsearly in the morning. The amount of water collectedby each household depends mainly on the number offemale members in the family since it is the womenwho go out to fetch water. Households having cattlehave higher consumption of water. Water is collectedin either plastic buckets or more commonly inbamboo containers. The average amount of watercollected by one adult female is 20 litres per trip.Small children also help in fetching water. On anaverage, every household collects water 2-3 timesa day. Such meagre supplies can hardly meet theconsumptive water needs of the family and there ishardly any water supplies for productive purposes orother enterprises. This leads to a very high level of water poverty which is discussed in thefollowing sections.3.8 Water Poverty Map of Lampong SheanghahWaterbottleCoping with water scarcity in LampongSheanghah, Mon, Nagaland(Photo credit: Bharat Sharma)The households of village of Lampong Sheanghah were ranked according to their WPI score. A low scoreon the WPI indicates high water poverty and vice versa. Any value of less than 0.5 indicates high levelof water poverty. The final WPI composite index scores for each cluster/ colony inhabitants and the finalscores for the whole of Lampong Sheanghah are shown in Table 4. The same results are shown in graphicalform by way of a WPI pentagram for the various clusters/colonies of the village (Fig 6).Since WPI is a relative measure of water poverty, it is not possible to determine the absolute state ofwater poverty in the case study area from the Water Poverty Index alone. However, it is possible to drawsome valid conclusions on the relative nature of water poverty between the clusters/ colonies or amongthe various households. The following conclusions can be drawn from the WPI and the correlationcoefficients (Table 5) for the WPI components:23
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WATER POVERTY IN THE NORTHEASTERN HILL REGION (INDIA)

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