Greetings !!!

This edition explores the initiatives that promote community ownership and participatory management of urban natural resources, emerging practices around “urban commons” and sustainable urban water governance. A brief compendium of the events organized to commemorate the Vayalagam Movement Day alongside World Water Day speaks about the community celebrations and declarations.

A success story detailing the efforts in Visakhapatnam to restore natural springs within the urban landscape highlights the CURE, Vizag moves. The column on the district policy workshop discusses the community efforts in integrating usufructs sharing and endowment in a larger scale. DVTF places its sincere gratitude to all the Vayalagam Movement leaders who play a greater role in materializing the milestone of Vayalagam Movement, the journey of the leader Mr.Vasavalingam is honoured. The Abhisaran 2025, the partners meet at Axis Bank Foundation has once again connected us with the missionaries at large.

Moreover, we are pleased to share our journey with water and environment over the last quarter, and we look forward to your continued cooperation and feedback

Team

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The life and livelihood of land-poor and marginal communities in rural contexts center on the environment commons, say Irrigation tanks, domestic drinking water ponds (ooranis – ponds that augment sub-surface groundwater flow), and grazing lands. These environmental commons are accessible to the whole/part community of a village and on which no individual has exclusive property rights. These commons support the livelihood of land-poor and marginal communities in terms of additional incomes and other provisional ecosystem services/supplies. The resource-poor households interact with the CPRs, say, irrigation tanks for irrigating the command area, cultivating rainfed crops in the tank-bed, cultivating vegetables in the tank bund, rearing fish, cultivating lotus, using soil for pottery and mud houses, collecting fuel wood and making charcoal, collection of other minor produces from trees in the commons, herbs for medicines, washing clothes, bathing livestock, and so. Similar was the interaction with other environmental commons. In specific to the interactions, though the power relations towards access, sharing benefits, and burdens vary across the groups, the linkages of commons and resource-poor remained critical in poverty reduction. Read More

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Vayalagam Movement Day and World Water Day Celebrations was celebrated everywhere in DHAN Collective from March 7 – 22, 20255. All the people institutions belong to various subsidiaries of DHAN Collective celebrated it at multiple levels like village, Panchayat, Block, District and State. The celebrations were observed across all the states where DHAN is present.

The leaders and members from the federations triggered the celebrations predominantly. The celebrations have laid platform for the entire segment in the society like women, youth, partners, philanthropist, etc, beside general public.

Celebrations

The event was celebrated across the states through various activities as follows:

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Detailed Celebrations is compline into a small Compendium.

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Policy workshop themed about “Usufruct Sharing and Endowment creation”

The workshop titled Usufruct Sharing and Endowment creation was conducted at the Manamadurai Vayalagam Federation on 15TH February 2025 with the presence of 63 members under the different federations of the region. The assistant Director of Horticulture and the Block Development Officer have facilitated the event with their valuable address. Read More

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Visakhapatnam, a city nestled between the coast and the Eastern Ghats, is not only a strategic urban center but also a hydrological marvel. Known for its spring shed ecosystem—a rarity in urban India—the region has historically thrived on natural springs that sustained generations. But urban sprawl, deforestation, and shifting land-use patterns have severely disrupted this delicate balance. In a groundbreaking move, DHAN Vayalagam Tank Foundation, through its Centre for Urban Water Resources, has launched India’s first-ever urban spring shed revival programme, beginning with Visakhapatnam. This initiative is not just a restoration effort; it’s a journey of rediscovering and re-integrating indigenous water wisdom into modern urban planning. Read More

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DHAN Foundation has one of its strategic goal of ‘Mainstreaming Water in DHAN Collective’. In line with this, the project “Women Empowerment through Water, Agriculture and Rural Development (WE WARD)” was launched. Project support by HDFC Parivartan for a period of three years from Jan’25 to Dec’27 at Ashti and Patoda blocks of Beed district of Maharashtra. The goal of the project is to “Increasing the family income of the small and marginal farm women through on- farm and off-farm interventions.” The project will support 4000 families by reaching around 20000 population. The core areas of projects work revolves around the promotion of Primary Producer Groups (AFGs), through which FPOs and sustainable agricultural practices will be encouraged. Similarly, the agenda on Soil and water conservation works for reviving the streams and channels to improve flow of water for irrigation. Read More

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Abhisaran is Axis Bank Foundation’s multi-stakeholder engagement platform, where purpose-led convenings are designed and co-curated with the intent of knowledge sharing, cross-learning, problem-solving and partnership strengthening. It is a series of thematic conversations planned in different formats throughout the year. These dialogues blend ABF’s strategic macro perspectives with granular grassroot insights shared by multi-disciplinary stakeholders that help identify diverse pathways for creating sustainable rural livelihoods. Read More

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