 Hello, everyone. Welcome to Rural Water Resource Management, NPTEL course. This is week eight, lecture two. In this week's lecture, as per the syllabus, we are looking at the issues for Rural Water Resource Management. What are the ways that we can overcome these issues? And also, what are the key players? Which agency has to take care of those kind of things? In the last lecture, we looked at capacity building. We took a viewpoint that water, especially in rural water resources, it doesn't just look at agriculture. There is also the possibilities of industries, possibilities of domestic water use, and most importantly, climate change and ecosystem services. All these are very important to attain good value for your water in agriculture. For example, if you do not supply enough water structures for climate change adaptation, then whatever water you supply for agriculture is not enough because climate change is happening, too much temperature might be ruining the crops, tire temperature increase, or a flood period might decrease the crops. So to navigate that, you are in need of Rural Water Resource Management as a holistic view. In that, we also look especially on capacity building. There are agencies and let's look at how these agencies are managing water. Government schemes. In today's lecture, we will be looking at the government schemes and how they do rural water resource management, especially one or two schemes because there are many, many schemes as I discussed in the last lecture. There are many ministries. There are many agencies under the ministry which work on water management. However, because there is not much interaction between these agencies or ministries, most of the time water is managed in isolation. And we want to promote that water should not be managed in isolation, but as a combination or a holistic approach where every key player is taken. Let's look at one government scheme which is actively working on water resources, especially rural water resources. As I said, there are multiple schemes that have been started and most of them are short term maintenance, less budget and not in a long term fashion. What do you mean by short term? It looks like this. I see from your village that you need small structures to store water. So the government scheme would say, okay, now you could set up a check-down. The check-down will solve your issue. But after three years, four years, what happens? The check-down needs maintenance. Who's going to put the money? It's not clear. And to be honest, there's no budget. So the budget given by the agency is to build the structure, but the stakeholders are not participating. That is why these government schemes are kind of failing. For example, if the farmers are saying, oh, I appreciate the work by this check-down. And so I would put in my time and some money to manage this check-down, then it's good. Then it can survive. But most of them are not. And maintenance is very, very expensive in some cases. For example, if sedimentation is too much, then you need a big bulldozer to come or JCP to come in, dig deep and take all the sediment out, which normally a small farmer cannot afford. Both the players and also the government agencies should come in term of maintenance. Infrastructure and maintenance issues are also big. The infrastructure might take too long to build, especially in government schemes because of budgets. And also the maintenance is not clearly spent. These are the long-term projects also, like for example, dams, canals, et cetera. Not only the short-term benefits and goals, but also the infrastructure and maintenance in the long term. Are they built for climate resilience? Are they taking into account ecosystem services? All these concepts we looked in the previous lecture. And are they focused on only one aspect of the holistic picture? All these are important issues that one has to look carefully in the government scheme. Let's take a scheme for example. And again, I'm not picking on a scheme and saying, okay, this is failing or that is doing better or something. It is just to show how a rural water management could be better if these schemes take all these considerations into account. As I showed in the last lecture, water conservation under the Mandrega has sustainably increased in the last five years. I'll just only show the data till 2014 to 2018. You can see that from 18,000 crores, it is more than doubled in five years. It goes to 41,000 crores. expenditure spent on water conservation activities under the Mandrega. Even though the Mandrega was given to prevent migration of farmers, 100 days work, the government ran out of work. What work can you give them? So in the early times of the scheme, if you see all the farmers would do is come, put a signature, take the 100 per day salary. At that time, it was 100 rupees. But now it depends on the state and where you are. For example, Canada pays around 289 per day. So they take that money and they would sit there for a couple of hours just discussing personal things and so no work done. And then they go back to their houses. So this was also not well organized because they didn't have bank accounts. So there was no monitoring of the money. There's no accountability of where it went because at that time everyone did not have bank accounts. But now the banks have been started in villages. You have mobile banks, phones, wallets and also postman who could take a mobile unit to collect money and give money at the household level. There's a lot of money that has been pumped into the water resource management under the NRM under the Mandreka. So Mandreka is a bigger budget. For example, last year it was around 60-70,000 crores. And from there, part of the money is given for NRM and almost 60 to 75 percent as this document says from the government of India is given for natural resource management. And most of the natural resource management is looking at water security. Because natural resource management includes soil management, soil fertility management, forest, etc. But most of them are still tied with water. So most of the budget is kept from water. The expenditure on NRM, work expenditure has been rising in a sustained manner over the last five years from 2014 to 2019. It is good. It is good for the rural water resource management. How the money is used is the question. Is it properly used? Is it documented well is the question. If you look here, the Mission Water Conservation under the NRM component, there are important protocols given in this document or the letter given dated on 14th in 2016. So you could say that there is a lot of protocols on how to use this Mandreka money for Mission Water Conservation. You cannot just say, okay, I'm going to build a dam, put all the Mandreka money there. It's not possible. There are some protocols, there are some signing, conservation activities, management, etc. So all these have to be taken to account. Let's take a couple of the protocols in example. Protocol 7 of guideline Mandreka and IWMP. IWMP is Intergrated Water Management Plan and program, Integrated Watershed Management Program. Let's give it here. So water management independently under the Mandreka. So you can say that this budget of the Mandreka is used for water management independently under the Mandreka and watershed management works under Mandreka in converges with IWMP scheme. So IWMP is a different scheme and from that scheme also there is water budgets, budgets to conserve rural water. So what this protocol says is you can use this budget for water management independently under the Mandreka or you could take it out and then use it with another scheme which is IWMP. So why is this important? As I was saying in the previous lectures, sometimes ASCs talk to, don't talk to each other and at one point this guy will be building a dam so that the other guy will also be building a dam. There will be two dams in the same location on paper and budgets and then when they go there and see, oh no there's a dam already. A small dam, check dam for example or a check dam and then 10 feet away there's another check dam. Both are not built by the same agency, different agencies. So this is where the government scheme especially Mandreka has been very wise to say that I don't have to put all the amount if I'm collaborating with IWMP which is in convergence which means IWMP money is coming, Mandreka money is coming and we've built one check dam to conserve water which is good. Protocol 8 of the guideline claims that prioritizing works of command area development and water management, CAD and WM. So it needs to prioritize the command area development. The area of the watershed that gives water into the outlet point. I'm just redrawing it for clarity. So this is your watershed and for example this is your structure. Each structure has a command area. If the structure is here then like a dam or a small recharge fund then this area is your command area which drains into your conservation infrastructure. Whereas this doesn't take the whole basin approach in terms of command area, yes all this is the command area for this point which is the outlet point for the watershed or the port point. But more importantly you have sub basins or subcashment areas which can be prioritized for rural water management. So the protocol 8 says prioritizing works of command area development and water management for rural water resources. You need to not only build your check dam but also the work in the command area has to be done so that water is coming clean and in a sustainable way. For example you have this area where you have you know and this is the command area. Suppose there are some streams or networks that is bringing water and you have encroachment in this area or the the camera is broken then that is not managed. So here protocol 8 can be used the budget can be used for managing that line. It is not directly saying that oh I'm clearing the land for water. However we know that only if you clear that part of the land water will flow and that has to be documented. So the Mandrega assets because of this there is multiple multiple assets that are being developed under the Mandrega scheme because of the big budget as we saw around 41,000 crores in 2017-18 period or similar period and that money cannot be just simply used to build assets. This is the concern for a lot of people working on the rural water management. You should build it for a particular idea for a long-term purpose. We're just saying that I'm going to build because the budget is there just build build these check dams and go. Then there is less scientific validation for it. Let's look at some. So the Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Act so this is the 100 days employment to farmers and villagers. So if you give that 100 days employment out of 365 days then the idea is that the remaining part they will do some agriculture. For example the monsoon period is spread across three months so 90 days they may do some agriculture. And in the remaining part they will sustain using the money they learned in agriculture and the 100 days. The 100 days is mostly in the summertime when there is no agriculture possible. So many assets have been created because the government suddenly arrives that instead of just giving the money use them as laborers to build some water conservation activities like check dams, nullars, bunds and managing these water resources, nursery, forestry. You can monitor and manage the saplings so that when someone asks for a reforestation or forestation work you can give these samples. Agroforestry, climate resilient crops, horticulture, fruits. So all of this has to be managed at a small nursery level first to convert the seeds into a good sapling or a plant and then they give it as an asset. How is this tied with water conservation, these small plants? It is tied because unless a farm has access to it they may grow only the crops that they have access and may be taking too much water out which is against the water management. Let's take eucalyptus for example. Eucalyptus is a tree which is used mostly in hilly areas where water is more. If you're using it in more flat land like Bangalore then eventually it will pull all the water out because it drinks or consumes a lot of water. That has to be avoided. So this kind of activity where native plants and trees are given with less water consumption should be encouraged so that water management activities get a pass mark in the Indian Mandrega system. Both small and large water bodies infrastructures have been created under this Mandrega scheme not only created but managed also. So the guidelines says on watershed management works taken up independently under the Mandrega or in convergence with the IWMP. You can google this document it is available. All these letters are available which determines and also gives as an order to all the high dignitaries and policy makers and bureaucrats, for example, secretaries, IAS officers to use the Mandrega budget for watershed management work either independently which they may not have capacity in some access or some regions or in convergence with the IWMP, Integrated Watershed Management Plan. Because in the Integrated Watershed Management there is water also. It's not only cropping, not tilling the sand, sorry, tilling the soil, making the land slopes gentler, those kind of but there's also water component. Let's look at the assets tagged by the Mandrega. So one good thing about the Mandrega asset. So what is an asset is one of these infrastructures that are created using the budget. So one good thing is the government has given the sources where it is located in your village, the geotag locations of the village and when the pond or what the asset has been created. So if you look at here major water conservation works created under the Mandrega. This is a 2019 report. You could see that ponds around 20,000 ponds have been created. Ponds are much bigger than farm ponds which are smaller in size. So there's around 18,000, I'm sorry, 20 lakh ponds and then farm ponds around 18 lakhs. Whereas we have check downs 5 lakhs and dug wells around 5 lakhs 14. So there's some differences there and then embankments which have been strengthened the ponds around 2 lakhs. So total completed work is around 50 lakh and think about the budget, how much budget goes in. And if you look at the water component or water management under the Mandrega, it is almost around 30,000, 40,000 crores. So it's still good money that can be spent on these 50 lakh projects. So a lot of money and a lot of projects have been built. And the proposed works going on is 57 lakhs. Not all these projects are up to date in the dashboard that they've created here in rega or pib.gov. You would see all these locations and where they have been done. Individual asset properties may take some time for the database to be created. Like for example, how much each budget is, what is the characteristics of each of them, that data is still taking time. So what are the issues in this? Now I have a map, I can easily tell a village. I can take out a village, let's say Latur and I will say, so this is Latur in Maharashtra. I would say go there and then look into these assets and tell me how it is sustaining the rural water management. What is the reality of these assets? Not all, some. Some assets is it is not properly managed or is it short term. For example, let's take the tanks. These tanks are there in Coimbatore and Madurai region of South India in districts in Tamil Nadu. What you see is you have a tank which has been given Mandrega money or some budgets from the government to clear. However, the budget is not enough. The asset is there and the budget is given based on the asset's number rather than the need, how much need, what is the actual need. And sometimes budget is just given very simply. Clear all the weed, the non-native meme present in the tank that you say, which is consuming a lot of water. You cannot do it by hand. So there is a lot of public participation and NGOs, for example, Dan has worked a lot there to use machinery, high equipment to remove all these weed plants, non-native plants. And what you see is a cleared Matan Kulam tank, but still it's not fully operating with water because there is more budgets needed, which can be provided through the Mandrega assets budget. Another one is the one new tank, which also had full of plants and weeds. Basically a tank is something that stores water. And these tanks were not created by Mandrega, but much, much longer before. So instead of creating new assets, the Mandrega budget, the government budget can be used to sustain the existing budgets. And that is what this example is about. And there are some budgets, for example, the well you see here from Marvi. These are made as an asset in the Mandrega budget, but it's not maintained properly. So who's questionable of these maintenance arises? The farmers, the stakeholders have to be also accountable because they are the ones using the water, whereas the government is just pushing these budgets into it. So they have to identify the people and say, hey, I'm going to put these, you have to manage it properly. Another example is this check-down. Check-down is built using the Mandrega budget, but half of it is gone. Maybe a big flood came and then washed out the wall, the machinery. But isn't it needed to conserve it? Isn't it needed to repair it? That repairing budget is not available. So most of the assets are kind of short-lived. They are there, the money has been put, you build a check-down or a small structure, a tank, but if there's no budget for maintenance, you cannot maintain it well. But just taking a step from the government side, how can you budget all this? And what happens to the budget if it is not used? For example, I built a check-down and I say that I'll give you 5 lakhs for the check-down, 1 lakh to manage it for 5 years. What happens if there's no big flood in the 5 years? Will the money be returned? So those things are not clarified. And for that, the simple thing is I won't give you management money, I just give you the asset. Now the proposal here through this class, I'm trying to make you think is why can it not be a public and government partnership, where government has put the initial cost to build a check-down and the public or the stakeholders who are using it have to come together and properly manage it. See, the government has given the asset. If the asset works, it's fine, no flood, fine. But if suddenly a climate change is occurring, flood is hitting the area, it is the impetus of the farmers to come together and do something about it or use some other budget to sustain it. So that is what is the case of most of these assets, not some, but that it is lacking the ownership from the participatory farmers. And the farmers are disconnected from this aspect that it is an asset from the Mandrega, it is a government of India asset. So I should not be the one responsible for that. And there are multiple, multiple reasons why people are separated against this. So when these schemes are built, because every year we're getting budget from Mandrega and every year there is 62, 75% of money going to be put on NRM. So if these NRMs are not properly managed, it is a loss to the taxpayer. So the best thing to do is to manage it properly, cautiously that I'm also a stakeholder, I'm also getting benefit of this and then use it. And there are other development budgets in the panchayat, which can be used to sustain these activities. With this, I would conclude today's lecture where we discussed about one of the issue which is the ownership of the assets and the status of these assets. So in the previous slides where I showed the location of this, there's no status map for it, is how they operate it. As I initially said, there's no data about the operation, there's no data about the current status of the dams or the structures from Dunwells. We need to know, right? Yes, you're putting all these in, but to better manage there should be some status report of this. Then what would happen is we could create a budget out of the NRM for management. So let's say every year I'm going to put new Dunwells or new check dams. Instead of 10 check dams, I can put nine check dams and the cost of the remaining one check dam I can use to maintain the other check dams which are built five years ago, four years ago, etc. Because when you build a check dam, let's take a check dam as an example. When you build a check dam, it can live well for the first three, four years where less sediment is there, even though the climate change induced floods hit the check dam, it still has the strength to manage it. But once it gets slowly older and older, the system would fail or collapse. Ceremonization picks up and other resources are there. So it is very important to manage also not just create the assets and also have information on the status of these assets and how they're working. I think we would be in a better way to manage a rural water resources assets, especially under the Mandreka budget, which has put tremendous amount of money on the farmer's 100 day scheme for NRM and part of the NRM is going into the water resource development for the village. It is not only the village responsibility or the government responsibility, it is the responsibility of both these players and especially the farmers should take care of the management if there's not much budget involved. With this, I would conclude today's lecture. I hope this field component of how these schemes are working. On paper, you would see on the on the laptop discussion, you would see all these assets are there, but are they managed well? Are they long term or short term is the question. I hope this class would give vital to that. Thank you. I will see you in the next class.