Society for Promoting Participative Ecosystem Management (SOPPECOM)

Atpadi, a taluka in Sangli district of southern Maharashtra and  situated in the rain-shadow of the Western Ghats, was often called as ‘the land of dushkal (droughts)’ and experienced one of its worst droughts in 2012,  followed by those again in  2016 and 2019. 

A civil society consultation was held on “Regenerating natural resources and rural livelihoods in rainfed areas of India” by WASSAN at Hyderabad in December 2010 to discuss priorities for the twelfth five year plan. The Planning Commission, Government of India has been steering the process of development in India by conceptualizing five year plans and had sought inputs from civil society organizations, activists groups, networks of CBOs / NGOs, donors and others for preparing an approach paper for twelfth plan.

The objective of the consultation workshop was to contribute to the process of defining broad contours of twelfth plan with a focus on rural livelihoods the thrust area being policy framework, funding support, institutional arrangements etc., by -

• Consolidating the lessons from good practices in promoting and protecting rural livelihoods in the country, that could be integrated in twelfth five year plan.
• Systematically articulating issues and concerns (bottlenecks) in promoting and protecting rural livelihoods, which could be addressed in the twelfth five year plan.

This policy  brief  has been jointly prepared by the Society for Promoting Participative Eco-system Management (SOPPECOM), Utthan and the Tata Institute of Social Sciences (TISS) and includes the findings of a study that attempted to understand the overall context and implications of women's participation in the irrigation sector.

This deals with the proceedings of the first stakeholder meeting held under the STRIVER project for the Tungabhadra River Basin. The meeting involved representatives from different stakeholder groups like the Irrigation Departments and Command Area Development Agencies (CADAs), Forest Department, Pollution Control Board, Fisheries Department, NGOs and civil society groups from the Tungabhadra basin, representatives of Water User Associations and farmers. Only the representation from industries was lacking in this meeting.