Water User Groups – BAIF’s Experience towards Equitable Water Use
G.S. Neelam, B.K. Kakade. A.S. Jape
1. Background
India's total geographic area is 328.76 Mha, out of which 197 Mha is covered by arable land. About 57 Mha is irrigated that constitutes 30% of the total cultivable area. India’s water resources are almost unlimited, but still falling short to provide adequate water supplies to irrigate available arable lands.
Groundwater use has increased largely because it is a 'democratic resource’, available to any farmer who has access to pump. Accessibility has led to widespread exploitation of the resource by farmers. Supplying to 27 million hectares of farmland, groundwater now irrigates a larger total area than surface water (21 million hectares). This means it sustains almost 60% of the country's irrigated land.
In just two decades, the groundwater-irrigated lands in India have increased by 105%. In contrast, the areas of surface-water irrigated land rose by only 28% over the same period. A count of mechanized wells and tube wells also illustrates how quickly groundwater irrigation has spread. Number of wells have rocketed in the last 40 years, from less than one million in 1960 to more than 19 million in the year 2000.
The result of this, consequences of over exploitation uncontrolled exploitation is 231 blocks are over-exploited and 107 are dark zone, out of 4272 groundwater blocks in India.
While groundwater development has had important implications for the economy, the overuse of groundwater is emerging as a major concern. It has been estimated by researchers that aquifer depletion could reduce India's grain harvest by one-fifth. Simply because evidence suggests that crop yields per cubic metre on groundwater-irrigated farms tend to be 1.2 to 3 times higher than on surface-water-irrigated farms.
It is important to recognize that overdraft and water level declines typically affect the sustainability of uses that are dependent on groundwater long before the resource base itself is threatened with physical exhaustion. Water level declines, for example, have the largest economic impact on individuals who are unable to afford deeper wells – i.e. the poor. The overdraft of the groundwater resource has also imposed threat on the drinking water availability as in our country 80% of rural water supply is met by groundwater.
At present, three key problems dominate groundwater use: depletion or mining due to overdraft; waterlogging and salinization due to inadequate drainage and insufficient conjunctive use mostly; and pollution due to agricultural, industrial and other human activities. Unplanned and unregulated groundwater abstraction can wreak havoc on fragile ecologies such as wetlands.
2. A Group Wells Concept
It has been proved that watershed development approach solves the problem of environmental deterioration and improves the livelihood of the community. But even after taking steps to harvest the rainwater and recharging the groundwater, there has been very less attention to utilize the recharged groundwater in an efficient manner. It has thus been observed that even after having successfully conserved the water resources, exploitation for agriculture has led to the similar scenario that was before the watershed project.
BAIF Development Research Foundation is a NGO working in the field of rural development for the last 35 years. Water Resource Development and Management is one of BAIF’s core programme areas. BAIF has come up with a concept of Water User Groups/Group Wells for the equitable water use and efficient management of the groundwater resource. This approach has been successfully implemented in the watershed projects across 5 states.
The process starts with a detailed hydrogeological investigation, Hydrogeological investigation includes the study of water resources, groundwater recharge–discharge mapping, groundwater system analysis and groundwater modelling. Pumping tests of the wells before their use to understand the per hour discharge are carried out. Carrying out such study at the planning stage of the project is very helpful to understand the exact amount of recharge to the groundwater and its proportionate discharge through the extraction devices.
3. Group Wells for Groundwater Extraction
The name itself is indicative of the nature of involvement of the members in the group. Water Users Group is a group of 5-10 farmers coming together for the equitable sharing and efficient management of the aquifer.
BAIF and its associate societies have observed that even after an increase in the groundwater levels in the range of 1-2 m because of the water conservation measures, farmers were not in a position to take benefit of this replenished water. The reason was the inability in investing for wells and pumps by individual farmer. Individually for a small land holding it was not possible to invest an amount in the range of Rs 30,000 – Rs 50,000. Their income levels were not high enough to invest in digging a well and purchasing a pumpset.
This provoked the staff to think of an approach wherein all the farmers would be equally benefited and the water resource will be used judicially. Bringing the farmers in group, wherein all the small land holders and big land holders will come together to share the resource was the concept. Initially there was reluctance from the farmers to this concept but with a regular follow up from the staff, farmers initiated with forming groups to share the water. The cost of source development, pumping set and its accessories is in the range of Rs 35000 to Rs 50000 in which the projects contributed in the range of 40 - 60% costs and remaining by the groups. Presently, the group wells have been formed on a large scale. Total 404 groups are benefiting 1781 families. The extent of water users group in different projects with the number of families benefited is given in tabular form below:
Sr. No / Projects / No of water user groups / Area under cultivation / Families benefited1 / Water Resources Development and Energy Conservation for Sustainable Management of the Environment (Uttar Pradesh) / 16 / 110 ha / 102
2 / Transfer of Technologies for Sustainable Development (Uttar Pradesh, Gujarat) / 132 / 784 ha / 655
3 / Adivasi Development Programme – South Gujarat / 256 / 1024 ha / 1024
4 / Total / 404 / 1981 / 1781
(Source: BAIF-ICEF project-1996-2003, BAIF-EU project 1996-2004, BAIF-KFW project 1995-2008)
4. Group Dynamics
5-10 members having lands close to each other are encouraged to come forward to form a group. The proposal of forming the group is placed in front of the village watershed committee/Gram Vikas Samiti. The committee members along with the project staff discuss the feasibility of forming the group.
The members of the group decide upon the place for digging the well with facilitation from BAIF. The initial work of digging the well is done by the members. The training imparted to the village youths is utilized for construction of the well. The group has defined their rules and regulation for their functioning (the details of groups in Uttar Pradesh and South Gujarat are given in the cases as annexure 1 and 2).
5. Rules and Regulations
The owner of the land, where the well has to be dug, formally hand overs the land to the group. The landowner signs his consent on a stamp paper with all the members signing as witnesses. This formally starts the group functioning. The group members together start digging the well/borewell. Depending upon their capacity members also contribute for material in terms of cash or kind. All the skilled work is done by the members themselves. Required skills for construction are developed through the project support.
Once the well is completed, the yield test is carried out by the members with the technical support of the project. Members then develop an agreement on equitable use of the water. The sharing of the water is decided along with the type of crops to be grown. Group bans the high water demanding crops.
The recharge measures in the catchment of the source are managed by the group, as the members know that water in their well is because of the conservation measures in the catchment of the aquifer. The water distribution is based on the crops grown and the land holding of each farmer. The farmer at the periphery of the command area of the well gets water initially and the farmer with land near the source in the end. The crop period is also staggered so as to rotate the water efficiently. Figure 1 below shows a conceptual model of how the group uses the groundwater source.
The group collects charges for the use of the water on hourly use basis. While the diesel for engine is filled up by the member who uses it. The charges collected are deposited in the bank account of the group, which is used for the repairs and maintenance of the well and the pumpset. All these rules and regulations have been formed by the group members.
6. Observations
The group members have developed their rules and regulations for handling the group matters. All the groups are working smoothly and each and every member is enjoying the profits gained by the enhanced agricultural production.
It is very important to note that the group based irrigation system gave access to all the farmers. Even a small farmer holding 2-3 bigha (0.5 ha) has also joined and participated in the group work and getting the benefit of groundwater. Individually it would have been a dream. The main criterion for development of group is the farmers surrounding the identified source have to come together. So all other barriers – caste, economic status or land holding status are automatically broken. Poor can become a member due to cost sharing for development. It’s not much burden to the individual. It can be recovered in 2 years
6.1 Equity
The issue of equity, which has been an issue of concern to most of the development activities is taken care with the formation of users groups. The large number of groups formed under the different projects have nearly 50% families having small land holdings. The involvement of the small landholders and equitable distribution of the water to them has assured the access to groundwater to the poor families. The income of these poor farmers has increased with the lands now yielding for 2 seasons. Women are a part of the group, with about 2-3 women members in the group. Few active women have also taken up the responsibility of office bearers of the groups ( eg: Maa Mukteshwari group, U.P. details in annex -1)
6.2 Land Use
The land use pattern has changed significantly. The area brought under cultivation has increased with the availability of water. It has been observed that lands, which remained barren after the monsoon crops, have now brought under cultivation of second crop. The crop production has increased significantly, for a few crops like the wheat it has nearly doubled because of the timely availability of water for the crops. The summer season is used to grow vegetable, which are mainly looked after by the women. The vegetables like brinjal, tomatoes, coriander, pumpkins etc are basically used for home consumption and the surplus is sold in the market. The intake of the vegetables has increased the intake of nutritional diet particularly for the women and children.
The land quality in the project areas has improved due to multiple cropping adopted by the farmers. With farmers growing a variety of crops and the conservation measures carried out, the soil fertility has improved. Since the members have to pay for water use, the restriction on over use has been achieved, which has ensured the balanced use and have no chance of land degradation.
6.3 Economic Development
Annual income of the group members has substantially increased. This can be easily compared with farmers who are not in the group. This contrast of incomes between the group members and non-group members has motivated the individual farmers to come forward and form the groups. The average annual increase in income is about Rs 3000/acre/season.
6.4 Water Management
The formations of water users groups have reduced the trend of having individual wells in the project area. It has been observed in many places that after the increase in groundwater table, the number of wells also increase rapidly. However this has been totally reversed in the project area. Groups of about 5-10 farmers share a single source now, which has reduced the threat of over exploitation of groundwater. This balanced use of the water has helped in creating a balance between the demand and supply of the resource. This has led to long term availability of the water resource in the area. The threat of over exploitation has been totally eradicated with the smooth functioning of the user groups. Regular monitoring of the water levels in the wells has helped in understanding the behavior of the aquifer and trend of groundwater use in the area and has proved that the demand side has never exceeded the supply from the aquifer (details of this are given in the individual case studies).
6.5 Recharging Groundwater
Group wells have been formed to extract the groundwater. Along with this, the recharge measures, which have helped in increasing the water level, are maintained collectively by the users group and the watershed committee. Apart from the measures for soil and water conservation, specific measures to harvest the rainwater and directly recharge the wells have been followed by the farmers. The most common among this is the well recharging measure in South Gujarat area.