This compendium is a result of the collective wisdom of grassroots organisations working for the betterment of tribal communities. The best practices shared here are the result of learnings from years of implementation experience in selected geographies of the Central Tribal Belt.
Given this context, Aga Khan Rural Support Programme (I), with the support of Axis Bank and Axis Bank Foundation, has initiated a research and policy initiative to enhance water control for tribal communities.
A product of the Corona Kal, it was made possible by people patiently answering tons of questions over lengthy phone conversations.
Water security is one of the primary challenges that rural communities experience. This further becomes a driver for other challenges like food security, health, and livelihoods. Most conversations with a rural household will indicate the seasonal stress they face, calling it out to erratic and bad monsoon. Erratic monsoons are now a reality, as much as true, is the fact that there is a lack of management of water, watershed, and irrigation.
While it is important to allocate more resources for water control in tribal areas, it is also critical that, studies provide options of how the resources need to be used for greater effectiveness.
Amongst all the vulnerable communities in India, tribal communities are the poorest with 47% of tribal communities below the poverty line. They are also the most predominantly rural community, (the other vulnerable community, the scheduled castes, have made a major transition to urban areas over the last two decades). A large number of NGOs have been working for a long time in tribal areas; evolving solutions to enhance their livelihoods. Many of the agriculture solutions are based on access to irrigation, and large-scale studies of ‘small farmer, prosperous farmer’, show that water control has become a necessary, but not sufficient condition for tribal prosperity.
It is also very clear, that while individual efforts by many NGOs have been effective; it is essential for both state and markets to be influenced, to scale up water control interventions for tribal communities. The percentage of area under irrigation in tribal areas is half of that in non-tribal areas: and therefore the potential to scale up is high.
This report provides options for policy-makers, practitioners, and donors, as they try and enhance water security in some of the poorest regions of India, the Central-Indian tribal belt.
