Watertight?
Just before the monsoon, as you travel along the roads around Hyderabad in Andhra Pradesh in India, you cannot fail to see the bright orange water tankers bringing fresh water to this thirsty city. There are claims and counter claims in the local press about the origin, cleanliness and cost of the water, whether from government agency or private company, but for farmers in the drought prone areas, there is no argument. For them, buying water is not an option.
As we write, the monsoon rains will make discussion of water shortages seem
odd. Nevertheless, making the best use of the water that is available, from
rain or groundwater, is essential. 
That's
the starting point - an 'entry point' - for a programme of work
by the State Government to improve the livelihoods of the poor farmers of
the region. The UK Government's Department for International Development is
assisting through the Andhra Pradesh Rural Livelihoods Project which is wholly
owned and managed by the State Government. It is called a 'livelihoods' project
because it is based upon the many livelihood needs of the people rather than
upon simple water conservation techniques alone, valuable though these are.
Community mobilisation is the key - letting people decide their own priorities
for development and then give them responsibility and empowerment to manage
these.
The drought prone areas suffer from recurring droughts and flash floods, falling ground water levels, neglect of traditional water conservation techniques and structures and, as a result, low levels of production and high levels of poverty. There are watershed rehabilitation schemes in many areas. ICRISAT, for example, is working with the villagers of Kothapally to construct check dams, improve wells, cultivate land previously unusable, and improve drainage through better land preparation. The main road to Hyderabad runs close by. Vegetables from the freshly irrigated fields reach market in half an hour or so - a good incentive to increase production as far and as fast as the capacity of land and water will allow. But where farming communities lie far from a profitable market, other motives will be needed for the effort required to improve water harvesting.
There are an estimated 10 million hectares of wasteland, about 40% of the total land area of Andhra Pradesh. In the 2,014 watersheds that have been studied under the Rural Livelihoods Project, 27,727 wells have been rejuvenated, 18,573 additional wells have been dug, the cultivated area has increased by 166,534 hectares and daily milk production has increased by 245,744 litres. These are straightforward, easily countable statistics. Improvement in quality of life is harder to quantify but is no less real. A community that becomes less vulnerable to drought is better able to seek and defend its rights and demand the government services to which it is entitled. For example, it takes a whole community to agree to conserve water but a landowner can exploit those efforts and use the water from his land as he wishes. What rights do tenants have? It is here that the livelihoods approach to development comes into its own - according to S.P.Tucker, an Indian civil servant and co-ordinator of the Andhra Pradesh Rural Livelihoods Project. An empowered community, he says, can better access the services that are meant for them. Mobilising the community to manage its own affairs is the key to that empowerment. Get that right and long after the check dams and wells have been constructed, they will still be holding water.
