Interventions in Water Resource Development and Management, Sehore

Located 60 km away from Bhopal , Sehore district falls in the Malwa region of Madhya Pradesh. The average annual rainfall of the area is 1150mm. Medium black and shallow black soil with a small portion of laterite soil is found in the area. Soyabean and maize is grown during Kharif season and wheat and gram are the major crops in the Rabi season. We started work in the Ichhawar block of the district in the year 2003 with funding support from the ITC Ltd.

In Ichhawar Project we are working on both the demand and supply side of water management. On the supply side , renovation and building of water-harvesting structures has been our key intervention. SRIJAN has renovated a cascade old and defunct panchayat structures. These are often big structures catering to the irrigation requirements of more than one village and at times as many as 100 farmers. We have also innovatively tried to tap surface water in the numerous small streams that dot the region in what we call Pouch Dams. A Pouch Dam is a small water harvesting structure, which costs around Rs. 60,000 and has better impact than a dugwell. It also helps in groundwater recharge.

In order to attend to the issues of water management and distribution we have just begun work on building the capacity of the water user groups, formed around these rehabilitated water harvesting structures, by conducting regular trainings and holding exposure visits to different projects in the country where vibrant user groups exist.

On the demand side , we are promoting water saving technologies like sprinklers on a large scale. About 200 sprinkler sets have been promoted in the area covering about 800 acres of land. This has not only helped the farmers save water but has also increased crop yield.