There are programmes other than Hiware Bazaar & Ralegan Siddhi for water management in Maharashtra that have had more impact
Drought tourism peaks at Hiware Bazaar and Ralegan Siddhi in Maharashtra every time the state is in a water crisis. They are favourite destinations for the media to land and report on how watershed development is helping these villages overcome water scarcity and fight poverty. That they are driven by larger-than-life figures of Anna Hazare of Ralegan Siddhi and Popatrao Pawar of Hiware Bazaar also helps.
But the one person farmers in remote villages of the state would love to have in their midst is Hermann Bacher, who launched the watershed programme, WOTR, in the state in 1993. ?Trap rain wherever it falls,? is what Bacher, now retired, would advice farmers.
Today, WOTR has touched 4 lakh hectares in the state, besides moving to Andhra Pradesh, Madhya Pradesh, Rajasthan, Jharkhand and Orissa as well. In all, the watershed programme has impacted 1,000 villages in the country so far.
In contrast, while the success in water management achieved in Hiware Bazaar and Ralegan Siddhi is unparalleled, the model has sadly failed to inspire other villages. Consequently, their impact on other parts of Maharashtra has been limited and it remains to be seen whether these models will wither away after their proponents are gone. Hazare blames corruption in watershed development works in the rest of Maharashtra for the Ralegan Siddhi model not being successful.
There have been several other successful projects in the state that never got highlighted as much, but have had more impact. Some projects have faded away after the key architect was gone, like the ?Pani Panchayat?, which was a celebrated effort for its equitable water distribution model.
Water was considered a common resource of the village and everybody had equal right to access it. Pani Panchayat founder Vilasrao Salunkhe managed to take this movement ahead in the 80s and early 90s, but after his death, the model has been forgotten.
Then there is Vijay Anna Borade working in Marathwada regions of Aurangabad, Beed, Jalna and Osmanabad for two decades.
Similarly, BAIF Development Research Foundation founded by late Gandhian Manibhai Desai looked at water conservation as part of the larger rural development programme.
Crispino Lobo, co-founder of WOTR, says Bacher (89), a Swiss-born, raised-in-Germany, Indianised priest, realised that other programmes in the state were focused on resource exploitation, following which he moved on to resource mobilisation through WOTR.
Every village had hill tops and valleys and villagers were told to stop water from the top and work out a whole range of interventions. Bacher wondered why the focus was on drainage lines, which held only 10% of the water, while ignoring the soil, which held 90% of the water.
Bacher worked on mobilising the community and building local institutions that would take ownership of the watershed programme. He campaigned for giving resources directly to the villagers, much against government norms, says Lobo, adding that there was a lot of resistance to his efforts, but they were finally allowed.
Similar clearances were received from the forest department, which had control over a lot of forest areas that fell in the villages.
Lobo says in fact later several government resolutions were passed based on WOTR?s experiences on the ground.
As a policy, WOTR works only in villages that have a watershed programme, the place has less than 20% of area under irrigation, a majority of the village has to agree and participate through shramdaan and the village has to accept a ban on grazing, tree cutting and digging of bore wells.
The villages also have to give up water intensive crops such as sugarcane, banana, orange, etc. This was a tough call in villages built on caste configurations, but Bacher was able to achieve it, recalls Lobo.
Farmers remember how the priest used to roll up his sleeves, pick up a spade and start digging the ground if farmers were reluctant to work or did not believe in what he was saying.