Traditional water harvesting as a solution to Western Orissa's perennial drought - A case study by MASS

This case study of Padiabadmal village in Sambalpur district by Manav Adhikar Seva Samiti (MASS) advocates traditional water harvesting as a solution to Western Orissa's perennial drought. Known for its agricultural prosperity in the past Western Orissa is now infamous for its parched reality of water scarcity, migration, starvation and all the woes attached to a ‘perennially drought-ridden’ society. In the last 100 years this belt has already had around 42 drought attacks, most of it coming after 1965.

Large scale deforestation added with gross negligence of the traditional water harvesting practices/ systems has virtually brought the situation to this critical juncture. Most importantly the policy to fight ‘drought’ has always been that of ‘drought relief’ rather than ‘drought proofing’. This along with various other reasons has made the situation so critical that a ‘reversal’ looks almost impossible. This is more so because the ‘communities’ that were known for their powerful traditional knowledge systems and practices have themselves lost confidence. The ‘development’ models have also come as top-down ‘models’ and not as models that have been planned by the people keeping in view their local natural resources and the knowledge systems attached to these. It is time to give serious thought on these various aspects to see if a ‘permanent’ solution to ‘drought’ is to be searched.

The time has come to reconsider some traditional, sustainable, water-harvesting and management practices which hold the potential to change the future of millions of suffering poor in the resource-rich but poverty-ridden western districts of Orissa. Western Orissa has been a resource-rich region and also a region with a long history of good and sustainable practice to manage these resources. One can easily find that one of the prime reasons for increasing frequency of drought is the neglect of Western Orissa's traditional water-harvesting structures.

Just four decades ago, the drought-prone Kalahandi-Bolangir-Koraput (KBK) districts, counted as one of the most backward zones in India, combated droughts successfully with a network of about 20,000 traditional tanks built with community participation. Given the undulating topography of the region, these tanks stored water that was later used during the dry months. So a failure in rainfall never caused drought. Of course, it might have been the cause of some scarcity of water.

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