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Themes - Vayalagam |
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Vayalagam Tankfed Agriculture Development ProgrammeThe tanks which are the village common properties had survived and supported millions of people over the centuries because of the institutional mechanisms. Historically, development of tank irrigation which is the major source of livelihood in the peninsular India had been built up by the kings, local chiefs and philanthropies of the region. The ancient village assemblies commonly called 'Gramasabhas' existed all over the south in different forms and names helped these resources to be optimized to the full extent. The age old inscriptions say that management of irrigation through the village tanks was one of the major agenda of the village assemblies. The revenue generated by the villages apart from the corpus funds they had for management of tanks were also used as the main source by the assemblies to safeguard the tanks from damages and destruction. The village assemblies kept the resources sustainable and livelihood was ensured to the people.
Later the changes in the administration setup led to the centralization of management of these common properties and the tanks are left with no resources on their own to safeguard them as it was done in the past. In this process the livelihood of farmers was affected and the village economy became weak. The Vayalagam Tankfed Agriculture Development Programme works for the conservation, development and management of tank systems. The programme believes that the regeneration of local management of the tank system can be a major solution to this problem in the long run. This is being done by organising the farmers around the tanks and later on at the level of cascade, block, district etc. |
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© Copyright DHAN Foundation 2006. |
