 results. The height of the water in wells rose to 1.75 metres in March-April last year and there was water in the bunds till May. This is important for the agriculture of the region. Onion, a rabi (winter) crop, requires water in the last few weeks. Any shortfall at this critical stage means 50% drop in production. That has now been overcome, with water in the bunds able to support onion and wheat, the main rabi crops of the region.
Purandar taluka lies in the rain shadow region of the Western Ghats and gets an average rainfall of 200-250mm in a year. It is also downstream of Pune city and therefore gets the untreated sewage the city releases into the Mula-Mutha River. That untreated water was beginning to contaminate the region, forcing villagers to depend on expensive water tankers. That was till this work began. For the past two years, the village has stopped buying water.
The damaged social fabric has meant that a sense of community is lost. Through the water bunds, we are seeking to bring back that sense of community ownership. Prashant Borawake, coordinator, Pani Panchayat
A grizzled, over fifty-year-old Laxman Ramchandra Kamthe sat poring over registers with details of daily expenditure on each of his smallholdings, which total seven acres. Kamthe and a few other progressive farmers of Kumbharwalan track every aspect of their business, ensuring cost control systems for optimal returns. "Only if we are self-sufficient in water are we truly independent," Kamthe told VillageSquare.in.
The villagers of Kumbharwalan believe they have a replicable model, having started with the basics. They outline the steps that need to be followed: measure rainfall, weather and climatic patterns, understand the topography, look at landholding patterns which give an insight into cropping patterns and prioritise issues.
A notable feature is that water-guzzling crops like sugarcane, thanks to high prices mandated by the central government's fair and remunerative price (FRP) have not had much traction in this historically dry region. However, workers here note that the moment water becomes available, some farmers expressed their desire to plant cane. Despite that dream, acreage under cane has fallen from some 2.5 acres to less than an acre just when water availability has increased. This can be attributed to the Pani Panchayat actively discouraging the planting of crops that require huge amounts of water.
Borawake was clear that the work has just begun: it takes a decade for the water table to stabilize. Along with repairing the bunds, they are also seeking to repair the damaged social fabric of these remote villages.
"The damaged social fabric has meant that a sense of community is lost. All these villagers used to have a sense of community so that community- owned spaces were looked after by all of them, be they bunds, the schoolyard or the village temple. Through the water bunds, we are seeking to bring back that sense of community ownership," he told VillageSquare.in.
For the villagers in Kumbharwalan, it's more than just about the water.
Gouri Agtey Athale is a Pune-based journalist.
This article was first published on VillageSquare.in, a public-interest communications platform focused on rural India.