Amita Bhaduri

Mile after mile of saline lands line the Delhi-Rohtak-Bhiwani stretch of the highway. Here, the land wasn't always saline, it became that way thanks to canal irrigation. Farmers have used extensive surface water, which has led to an increase in groundwater levels. This leads to the twin problem of waterlogging and salinity.

The theme of this year’s World Water Day was “energy-water nexus”. It was almost as if the topic was chosen keeping Western Uttar Pradesh in mind because the conflict between water and energy users in agriculture and industry has heightened here in the recent past.

National Highway 10 passes through Badophal, a village in Fatehabad district of Haryana. The highway is lined by a tiny market and a point where several jeeps start and terminate. These jeeps are headed to Gorakhpur village, some 15 kms away via Kajal Heri, another village en route.

Floods in Bihar have acquired menacing proportions following the embanking of its rivers, which has led to severe dislocations in the society. Estimates suggest that 70% of the population in north Bihar lives under the recurring threat of flood devastation (1). The 2013 floods affected more than 5.9 million people in 3768 villages (2).

Mewat, a historical region comprising of the present Mewat district of Haryana and parts of Alwar, Bharatpur and Dholpur districts of Rajasthan, lies in a semi-arid belt. It experiences variable rainfall annually and receives, on average, 336 mm to 540 mm, as per the Mewat Development Agency.

A little less than 40 km away from the district headquarters of Tikamgarh in northern Madhya Pradesh lies a watershed, which is an area of land where all of the water that is under it or drains off of it goes into the same place (US Environmental Protection Agency).

In Jhansi, Bundelkhand farmers experience great uncertainties in agriculture due to erratic rainfall. Covering 13 districts of southwest Uttar Pradesh and Northern Madhya Pradesh with a population of approximately 21 million, Bundelkhand is a typical semi-arid region.  Around 83% of the area is rural and more than one third of the households are considered to be below the poverty line.

Nidhan is about 30 km away from its district headquarter Morena, Madhya Pradesh. The village receives an annual average rainfall of 450 mm concentrated in the months of July and August. While much of the village depends on rainfed agriculture, the main source of irrigation in the rabi (winter) season is borewells.

Charkhari, a princely state of India in the colonial period was once a beautiful settlement founded by Saurabh Singh Bundela, a Rajput King. Acceded to India post-Independence, the town is now located in Mahoba, Uttar Pradesh. The place was home to intricate water management systems in the past.

It all started in the eighties when Friends Rural Centre, a group of Gandhian Quakers in Rasuliya village, near Hoshanagabad, Madhya Pradesh came in contact with Masanobu Fukuoka.