An innovative water bank project, the brainchild of Tiruvannamalai District Collector KS Kandasamy, has resulted in rural youth volunteering for water conservation efforts and recharging 132 of the 360 water bodies in which works are currently under way.
Two renovated water bodies near Tiruvannamalai which now hold water successfully
Tiruvannamalai:
“Awareness was created through word of mouth when the good work in one area quickly spread. We then held meetings with villagers where we offered them help in both cash and kind to maintain the momentum of work already started,” Kandasamy stated.
Soon the water bank with its office in the Tiruvannamalai collector’s office was registered under the TN Society’s Act and a bank account opened. “Till date, we have received Rs 13 lakh which speaks volumes for the public trust in the work we do,” Kandasamy added.
Once initial glitches were ironed out in village meetings, “We found local youth doing the work themselves. We then dovetailed them with the MGNREGS (Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Scheme) so that they could earn for the work they did,” an official said.
Asked how the administration helped, Kandasamy said, “They would occasionally request us for earth moving machinery when dense bushes had to be cleared from lake beds. On other occasions, they would provide machinery themselves and seek out help to purchase diesel to operate the machines. This give-and-take on the part of the administration resulted in many youth volunteering.”
Another idea which helped was the creation of water budget for each village. A census noted details of the number of small, marginal and big farmers, agricultural and horticultural crops raised, the number of crops raised per season, water sources available in the village, area under different types of irrigation, fallow land available and the water conservation methods in vogue. “This helped the villagers understand why water had to be used judiciously and how much could be spared for each crop. This made out jobs easy as now they knew that each drop of water mattered. Having faced drought they are now all for participation in the scheme,” Kandasamy averred.
Officials now hope that the present trend will continue so that all the 4,000 water bodies in the district will benefit.
Elaborating, Kandasamy said, “The project was based on the feedback from villages, especially youth, who supported government moves to remove encroachments from water bodies. We found that the already removed encroachers were back in place after a couple of months. As officials were unable to monitor encroachment removal work round-the-clock, we decided to seek public participation. It was then that we received enormous response that we decided to use them in the ongoing kudimaramathu works.
“Awareness was created through word of mouth when the good work in one area quickly spread. We then held meetings with villagers where we offered them help in both cash and kind to maintain the momentum of work already started,” Kandasamy stated.
Soon the water bank with its office in the Tiruvannamalai collector’s office was registered under the TN Society’s Act and a bank account opened. “Till date, we have received Rs 13 lakh which speaks volumes for the public trust in the work we do,” Kandasamy added.
Once initial glitches were ironed out in village meetings, “We found local youth doing the work themselves. We then dovetailed them with the MGNREGS (Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Scheme) so that they could earn for the work they did,” an official said.
Asked how the administration helped, Kandasamy said, “They would occasionally request us for earth moving machinery when dense bushes had to be cleared from lake beds. On other occasions, they would provide machinery themselves and seek out help to purchase diesel to operate the machines. This give-and-take on the part of the administration resulted in many youth volunteering.”
Another idea which helped was the creation of water budget for each village. A census noted details of the number of small, marginal and big farmers, agricultural and horticultural crops raised, the number of crops raised per season, water sources available in the village, area under different types of irrigation, fallow land available and the water conservation methods in vogue. “This helped the villagers understand why water had to be used judiciously and how much could be spared for each crop. This made out jobs easy as now they knew that each drop of water mattered. Having faced drought they are now all for participation in the scheme,” Kandasamy averred.
Officials now hope that the present trend will continue so that all the 4,000 water bodies in the district will benefit.