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| Nothing much on ground, water harvesting structures defunct | | IWDP missed objectives in J&K | | Syed Junaid Hashmi
JAMMU, June 27: Contrary to government claim of having covered more than 18,210 hectares of agricultural and forest land under Integrated Watershed Development Project (IWDP), Lal Bahadur Shastri National Academy of Administration (LBSNAA) has picked up holes in its implementation across Jammu and Kashmir.
A study on the "Impact and Effectiveness of Watershed Development Programmes In India" conducted by academy's Institute of Administrative Research has brought to light ill-planned implementation of the scheme which was initially envisaged as a measure for poverty alleviation and improved livelihoods. Later, it gained even greater importance in light of the worldwide recognition of its effectiveness in combating climatic change.
Taking the claims head-on, report maintains that quality of water harvesting structures (WHS) is not upto the mark and stand nowhere when compared with states like Tamil Nadu, Gujarat, Uttar Pradesh, Madhya Pradesh, and Maharashtra. It says that during the course of ground verification, it found out that there was no people participation during the construction of watersheds across the state.
Activities like afforestration, pasture development, horticulture, etc. can directly check soil erosion but these activities are scanty even in those parts of the state where government claims to have done extremely good work. WDPs have resulted in reducing work load of women by 1 to 2 hours in majority of states. Fetching drinking water, collecting fuel wood, fodder, etc. are relatively easier after WDPs introduced.
The report maintains that among a few states, where the data is available, Rajasthan and Tamil Nadu have reported better in reducing workload of women while in Jammu and Kashmir and Himachal Pradesh there is no significant reduction in workload owing to failure of the implementing agency to take care of this important aspect of IWDP.
User groups for all major activities had been formed across the country except Jammu and Kashmir. It has further found out that in most cases, watershed committee exists in the villages to some extent, while user groups (UGs) are not at all active after the completion of project. Regarding performance of states, the study report says that Jammu and Kashmir is among worst while Gujarat leads the entire country.
The team said that quality of construction in Jammu and Kashmir was not found up to the mark. All the structures erected during the implementation were found to be defunct. Check dams were silted and some were broken. As reported, the possible reason could be that these structures were constructed without people's participation. Not only this, the contribution of watershed development fund was found nil.
As observed from the data furnished by the evaluating agencies, the ground water level experienced marginal increase in Jammu and Kashmir mainly due to undulating topography of the area, low or irregular rainfall, impermeable layers below surface of the water harvesting structures and over exploitation of ground water.
Jammu and Kashmir study has reported that there are marked changes in crop diversification despite the fact that there is no proper investment in this regard. It has added that there was no significant reduction in the workload as the community did not get any respite from the water crisis. No effective community development approach for developing village level institution was noticed.
No user groups were formed and all self-help groups stopped working as the watershed project got over. Besides, the report affirms that there has not been any additional employment generation in Jammu and Kashmir due to watersheds. It needs to be mentioned here that last year, 11,155 hectares were covered under the project at the cost of Rs 25 crore during the year 2010-11.
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