Case5-May-2012
In rural India, tanks/ponds have been playing very vital role in socio, cultural, economic and environment development. Tanks & Ponds are the common property of Indian villages and support the livelihoods of the marginalized community in rural, urban, coastal and tribal areas of India. These small scale water bodies generate substantial income to village common fund through usufructs (fishery, trees etc.), which in turn is used for village development work. Tanks are sources of fuel wood, timber and fodder to livestock of marginalized people. During summer season, landless people use tank bed for cucumber and vegetable cultivation to earn additional income. Several lakhs of farming families are dependent on tank system in South India. There are about 5,00,000 tanks in India and these tanks are intensely situated in semi arid parts of Peninsular India. These tanks capture the runoff water of the monsoon rainfall occurring in a short span of time and providing water for irrigation & other multiple uses for the community who depend on this. These tanks were created by our forefathers and managed by the local communities over several centuries. These tanks and ponds are highly adoptive to the implications of the climate change. This paper discussed about the role of these small scale water bodies in enhancing the livelihoods of the local community in rural, urban, coastal and tribal community.
The people living below the poverty line in rural India are not getting adequate water and in a affordable manner. The tanks and ponds are highly used for agricultural and other village uses in semi arid regions of South India; However the degeneration of the these water bodies is happened due to sedimentation, encroachments, damaged water regulating structures, weak bunds, disappearance traditional community governance, over extraction of ground water and changes in the land use of their catchment areas. Their performance efficiency also has been deteriorating due to inadequate maintenance and neglect. Many efforts are being made to enhance water storage by such activities as water conservation and rehabilitation of tank irrigation systems with community participation and management in a most cost effective manner. These tanks are mostly spread over rural and drought prone areas and the users are predominantly small and marginal farmers having land holdings less than 1 hectare each. Their livelihood depends on such small water bodies. They are vulnerable sections of the farming community, primarily depending upon the capricious monsoons. They do not have access to large scale canal irrigation systems or to independent groundwater sources like wells. The only way to improve their crop production from tank fed farming is to provide them access to such supplemental water resources like conservation of small water bodies like tanks and ponds through participatory process and enable them to manage the water distribution and thus become self reliant.
Water demand is increased in urban area because of faster urbanization; the water need could not be fulfilled by the existing combined drinking water projects from the rivers. Because of the dense population ground water extraction is too high in urban area. However the tanks/ ponds in the urban area have the high potential to bridge the gap in the existing water demand of the urban population. But the urban water bodies are forced to the environmental problems because of the dumping of the garbage in water bodies, draining sewage water in to the tanks, construction of the government buildings & other infrastructures in the water spread area and encroachment of the water ways. This leads to the extinction of the water bodies, contamination of the water bodies, spreading of the water borne diseases and other environmental problems. Encroachment of the water ways resulted in heavy flood during the monsoon time. These water bodies have high potential of ground water recharge and other water supply. So the way to supplement the existing water resources to meet out the increasing water need, prevention of extinction of water bodies, waste water recycling and other rainwater harvesting techniques.
In coastal areas, drinking water ponds still continue to be the primary source of drinking water and domestic water use, where the ground water is saline and these areas have no rivers to supply drinking water. In some of the coastal areas there is less intensity of the traditional water resources and other water diversion structures. Creating the new water bodies like common ponds, farm ponds, restoring existing water bodies and other water harvesting structures will help to cope up with the saline ground water problem and enhance the livelihoods of the poor people.
In tribal context, tank based watershed development resulted in the renovation of the ponds, tanks, creating new water harvesting structures, orchard development and wage employment for the poor families. In tribal areas the ground water resources are less utilized. Use of surface water supplemented with ground water will help for the poor families of tribal area. These water conservation activities enhance the livelihood activities of the tribal poor.
Tanks have been playing very vital role in conserving the village ecosystem and environment development. The eco system perspective of tanks given under:
Tanks/ponds are one of the wetland eco-systems with many trees flora and fauna in their foreshore, water spread area, channel area and bunds in addition to agroclimatic zone specific cropping pattern in command area of the tanks. It is act as the place for the bio diversity conservation of the local species of the village. They generate greater revenue for the people who directly dependent on them. The local species of the village are conserved traditionally as sacred grooves in some of the village tank complex.
Tanks are predominantly situated in hard rock area and most of them varying from shallow 1m depth up to 6 metres depth. They store monsoon run-off for more than 4 to 6 months. They facilitate ground water recharge in their zone of influence and facilitate the ground water level increase in many places. The aquifers in the wells in the vicinity within the radius of one kilometre of the water bodies were revived and have again come into life through ground water recharge after the tank development works, since the pores closed due to siltation opened up after rehabilitation of tank systems.
Tanks in the Southern India are situated in Deccan Plateau in cascades. The monsoons received in the catchments are equitably distributed among the tanks in cascade based on their capacity and hydrological linkage. There is least amount of conveyance, seepage losses in tank cascade systems as against the canal irrigation systems. These tank cascades are acts as a flood moderator at the time of monsoon season. The equitable distribution of water and smaller land holding in command area of each tanks facilitate higher productivity if the tank cascade systems perform to their optimum efficiency. In tribal area tank based watershed development includes the renovation of the existing water bodies and catchment area treatment for the effective storage of the rainwater.
As the tanks hold water for 4 to 6 months period, the village community take up pisciculture activities as the freshwater ecosystem nurture the growth of fishes and gives good income to the community. In some villages fish rearing activities help to ensure the nutritional security of the poor people of villages their own household consumption.
In the context of South India, especially in Tamil Nadu, the Forest Department is allowed to raise social forestry (acacia plantations) in the tank bed; in a period of 5 to 6 years, they mature to a sizable bio-mass which are cut and sold for fuel and timber. Also, a sizeable amount of resource mobilized from selling woods is likely to be shared by the local institution for managing and maintaining the tanks. In addition to this the trees planted in the rear of the bund and foreshore by the tank farmers associations and local panchayat and it gives good income to the village. It is used as a fodder and fire wood by the local people. Orchards developed in the tank catchment area of tanks reduce the erosion and it ensures the livelihood security of the tribal families.
After rehabilitation of tanks, if foreshore plantation is carried out and grasses are grown under the trees and bunds, then the grasses are used to the livestock as grazing land. As such in Tamil Nadu State, there is no category under Land Use pattern for grazing lands, only the tanks provide source for grazing immediately after monsoon season.
Since 1992, DHAN Foundation a professional development organization based at Madurai has been implementing tank conservation and watershed development projects including rejuvenation of drinking water ponds in south India. DHAN Foundation’s ap-proach is mainly reviving the community management in small scale water bodies which are already locally managed in terms of water distribution and utilization. Our efforts over the past two decades in drought prone areas of Tamil Nadu, Andhra Pradesh, Pudhucherry , Odhisa and Karnataka in south India for making the tanks more useful to the rural communities. The program named Vayalagam tank fed agricultural development is being implemented for livelihoods development of poor marginalised farming community. The programme is working with 212879 farming families who are depending on the small scale water bodies. 75% of the members reach is from rural context, 2% of the member from urban context, 15% of the member from coastal context and 8% of the member reach from the tribal context. The programme has the following major components.
Promotion of the people institution for the small water bodies is of core of the programme wherein the communities are mobilized to conserve their water resources in a sustainable way.
Component ensures the conservation works like tank renovation, pond renovation, clearing the link channel, catchment area treatment works are done in a tank cascade/ watershed basis ensuring highest possible returns to the farming families.
Tank fed agriculture development provides appropriate methods and techniques in using the water and land efficiently for improving the productivity of the tank command area and catchment areas.
A corpus fund is generated to village tank institutions on a matching basis to sustain their conserved tanks.