Is community participation the surest way of increasing access water service delivery in rural communities?

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• 
  Biplab Paul ·

  I am working on this issue for last 17 years. My knowledge is totally grassroot and applied. Will it be interesting?

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  I am working on this issue for last 17 years. My knowledge is totally grassroot and applied. Will it be interesting?

  Oct 31, 2011
• 
  Mohammad Firoz Khan · Jamia Millia Islamia

  My colleagues and research scholar and myself have produced a small paper on community participation in drinking water management in a part of semiarid Rajasthan recently published in the Deccan Geographer (India). Scarcity of water due to sporadic rainfall and depletion of aquifers not only in the area of study but also its underground movement towards already depleted groundwater of adjoining Haryana, has created a situation of crisis and there was felt a shortage of drinking water. The villagers of their own volition without any outside help from NGOs or Governmental agencies either technical or otherwise organised themselves to harvest sporadic rainfall. They dug ditches from seasonal or ephemeral streams to lead rainwater into alluvial tanks/ponds which were earlier used for water use. They also using traditional wisdom directed extra water to large depressions underneath which according to traditional knowledge freshwater aquifers should exist. Thus, not only surface water is available, but also groundwater is being recharged at a sufficient rate. However, ours is a complex society and caste system is still intact in rural areas to some extent. Though all villagers are stakeholders but this is causing problem and sometime conflict. Obviously, unprivileged ones are suffering. Now rural communities in the area are in the process of rationing water or allocating johads (tanks/ponds) to different castes such that drinking water problem of all is amicably solved. Yes community participation can do wonders in managing resources specially water and vegetation cover given all stakeholders get their due. Our above mentioned preliminary study is encouraging.

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  My colleagues and research scholar and myself have produced a small paper on community participation in drinking water management in a part of semiarid Rajasthan recently published in the Deccan Geographer (India). Scarcity of water due to sporadic rainfall and depletion of aquifers not only in the area of study but also its underground movement towards already depleted groundwater of adjoining Haryana, has created a situation of crisis and there was felt a shortage of drinking water. The villagers of their own volition without any outside help from NGOs or Governmental agencies either technical or otherwise organised themselves to harvest sporadic rainfall. They dug ditches from seasonal or ephemeral streams to lead rainwater into alluvial tanks/ponds which were earlier used for water use. They also using traditional wisdom directed extra water to large depressions underneath which according to traditional knowledge freshwater aquifers should exist. Thus, not only surface water is available, but also groundwater is being recharged at a sufficient rate. However, ours is a complex society and caste system is still intact in rural areas to some extent. Though all villagers are stakeholders but this is causing problem and sometime conflict. Obviously, unprivileged ones are suffering. Now rural communities in the area are in the process of rationing water or allocating johads (tanks/ponds) to different castes such that drinking water problem of all is amicably solved. Yes community participation can do wonders in managing resources specially water and vegetation cover given all stakeholders get their due. Our above mentioned preliminary study is encouraging.

  Apr 25, 2012