Common Guidelines for Watershed Development: Some Reflections

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national/international agencies, corporate sector, etc. The SLNA is expected to prepare a state level perspective/strategic plan based on district plans. However, it is not clear what this comprises. In earlier guidelines, (especially the revised 2001 guidelines) this plan comprised simply the calculation of the area that required watershed development and the required funds to cover that area.

Areas Requiring More Attention

The CG try to address some of the concerns pertaining to the normative framework (like productivity, sustainability, equity, participation and decentralised democracy)6 as part of the guiding principles, but there is also a need for greater attention and fine-tuning. An explicit emphasis is required on access to and effective management of common property land resource (CPLR), especially when it forms part of forest land because development of CPLR is critical in addressing the issues of equity and sustainability. Similarly, regulation and sharing of groundwater among households within the watershed community also needs explicit mention and attention. The importance of privileging domestic water (including drinking water) and water for cattle in watershed management needs to be underlined. Developing institutional arrangements and norms for sharing of newly created or augmented resources like water and biomass is an important area. Gender equity may need an emphasis on positive discrimination in favour of overall empowerment of women by addressing their concerns and providing them representation in various decision-making bodies.

All these aspects constitute the most critical concerns of watershed development and pose the most complex challenges in project implementation – the state level processes may need to translate these principles into action, evolve guidelines and processes by which these concerns can be integrated into the perspective and strategic planning for the state and also the detailed project reports (DPRs) and monitoring of the project implementation. For example, the concern for “equity and gender sensitivity” is more in the nature of a “desirable” principle, while it needs to become a precondition for

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graduating to the next phase of watershed works, as it was envisaged in the PCR. Similarly, the welcome step phasing the watershed development programme into three phases can make a difference, if the progression from the one phase to the next is made conditional on meeting the objectives, indicators and targets of the previous phase, otherwise automatic progression would make little difference on the ground.7

The issue of transparency and sharing of information or data and putting it in the public domain needs a special attention. Sharing of the findings of the monitoring and evaluation studies/reports conducted by independent agencies may provide timely signals for mid-course corrections and also help generate an informed debate on how to move forward.8 Also, while the CG’s emphasis on handing over responsibility to panchayats and/or user groups as part of the withdrawal phase is important, there is a need to ensure actual performance or sustenance in the post-project phase9 and for long-term monitoring of the project impacts (biophysical, socio-economic and institutional) and the arrangements for future management.

Lastly, the cluster and multitier approaches recommended by the CG may need a special attention while sanctioning of watershed projects in the state. The PCR has suggested a cluster of at least 5,000 ha as unit for planning and implementation in the form of a milli-watershed. The Forum for Watershed Research and Policy Dialogue (ForWarD) had suggested a larger unit of the order of 5 to 10,000 ha, basically the catchment of a stream or a subbasin for initial planning [Joy et al 2006]. Reducing the proposed size of watershed unit to 1,000-5,000 ha may fail to gain the scale advantage in terms of hydrological features as well as economic activities and also address some of the issues related to externalities. This feature may be reconsidered by the SLNA.

The CG also talk about multitier ridge to valley sequencing of watershed implementation and entrusting the onus of implementation of watershed treatments in the forest areas of the watersheds, in the upper reaches of the watersheds, mainly with the FD and JFMC (see sub-clause IX under clause 9). This issue needs to be revisited as it can go counter to the spirit of convergence and integration. Experience shows that forest land treatments and lower reach watershed treatments are hardly planned together in an integrated manner to make the ridge to valley implementation possible. This needs to be changed and wherever micro watersheds include forest area, a common treatment programme needs to be evolved under the aegis of the local project implementation mechanism (PIA/WDT/WC/gram sabha) with adequate representation for the FD and JFMC in the process of planning and implementation.

The Next Steps

Before state level initiatives take off under the CG, a few immediate steps are needed to take forward the main features/guiding principles of the PCR and the CG and build further on them.

Firstly, there is a need for a national level workshop, bringing together the major stakeholders from each state, organised preferably under the aegis of the NRAA, to discuss and evolve a shared understanding of (a) what already exists in the CG; and

(b) what needs to be further calibrated/ emphasised at the state level processes. The discussion should revisit the normative framework of the PCR which reflects a fair amount of consensus but, does not find sufficient space in the CG, and explore ways of meaningfully incorporating it in the state level processes. Secondly, there is a need to constitute a task force with regional subgroups, under the NRAA, to help develop the perspective and the strategic plan for each state. Lastly, capacity-building initiatives may be planned right in the initial stage so as to be able to kick start the two critical activities: (a) collating the requisite database for deciding on the issues like prioritisation, unit of planning and selection of PIAs; and (b) base line survey for preparation of the detailed project plans.

A number of agencies and organisations could help in these initial steps at the national as well as state level. Their contribution is important in ensuring that the CG are translated in each state into a form that is relevant to its situation. The initial processes of setting a new stage for the next phase of watershed development is the most formative and could well determine the shape it will take once the respective state governments take over the responsibilities. It is important to utilise this democratic space fruitfully before the pressures and compulsions of meeting the annual targets take over!

Notes

1 An earlier effort in 2000 by MoRD and MoA could not operate as a common guideline across the two ministries. Since then the MoRD had revised the guidelines twice, once in 2001 and then in 2003, the last revision being better known as Hariyali Guidelines.

2 Also draws from other guidelines and certain features and provisions of the revised guidelines – 2001, (MoRD), WARASA-2000 (MoA) and some of the bilateral projects of Department of International Development (DFID), DANIDA, Indo German Watershed Development Programme (IGWDP), etc.

3 While the CG do not make explicit mention of the approved per ha cost norm, which is rather strange, but only mention that the cost per ha would be raised as per Eleventh Plan, the expected revision is likely to be at least up to the level noted above.

4 In one place the DWDU seems to be equated with “district data cell” (see clause 30 of the CG).

5 It is noted that “whereas the ministry is free to set up its own mechanisms to oversee watershed development programmes, it shall also have the option to set up a nodal agency at the central level in the department for managing and implementing watershed development projects” [Para 18].

6 For details see Joy et al (2006).

7 This was one of the issues raised by ForWaRD in its note to the Parthasarathy Committee [Joy et al 2006].

8 Inadequate access to the evaluation studies for the government supported watershed projects emerged as one of the important constraints while carrying out the comprehensive assessment of watershed projects, coordinated by International Crop Research Institute for Semi-Arid Tropics (ICRISAT). GIDR and SOPPECOM were also part of this assessment.

9 This is what has been borne out of the rapid assessment of the nearly 1,000 completed micro watershed projects conducted by the forward team in Karnataka, Maharashtra and Madhya Pradesh. For details contact watershed@forward.org.in; also visit www.forward.org.in

References

Joy, K J, Amita Shah, Suhas Paranjape, Shrinivas Badiger and Sharachchandra Lele (2006): ‘Reorienting the Watershed Development Programme in India’, Occasional Paper, ForWaRD, Society for Promoting Participatory Ecosystem Management, Pune.

Shah, M (2008): ‘Rainfed Authority and Watershed Reforms’, Economic & Political Weekly, Discussion, Vol 43, Nos 12 and 13, pp 105-109.

TOI (2008): ‘Unreformed Congress: U-turn on Economic Reforms Reveals Bankruptcy of Ideas’ (editorial), The Times of India, April 12.

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