Droughts and Floods

This case study published in Yojana documents Megh Pyne Abhiyan's work in organising access to safe drinking water for rural communities during the 2006 and 2007 floods in North Bihar. As a result of the Abhiyan's work, approximately 13000 and 36000 people accepted and accessed rainwater as a safe drinking water during the North Bihar floods of 2006 and 2007 respectively. Using rain water for drinking led to significant improvement in health indicators and flood-related deaths and sickness, as well as reduction in health expenditure.

On 15 November 2009, I set out to gather see how people were coping in the aftermath of the floods that hit parts of North Karnataka. We chose to visit Gudisagar in Navalgund Taluk in Dharwad district.

Now that the media has stopped taking interest in the devastating floods that made news in early October, you must be wondering what must have happened to the people who were badly affected by the floods !

For a GIS zealot like me, this is breaking news on the Indian mapping front. Finally a GIS application for risk-mapping and management of floods in India!

The Flood Risk Mapping Study, funded by the Water Resources wing of the Public Works Department to a tune of Rs 2,17 crores, is an initiative of the Tamil Nadu State Government. It is supported by the Centre's Department of Science and Technology and Survey of India in the research component of the project. This one-year project is being handled by Anna University’s Institute of Remote Sensing (IRS), Chennai.

Discussion on the recent flood situation  at North Karnataka regarding the injustice meted to the Dalit women, caste discrimination being shown towards Dalits in the flood affected villages.

Venue              : Conference Hall, Legislative House, Bangalore
Time                : 11 am – 3.00 pm

'Alliance for 5 Life Sustaining Elements' ( ALSE), is a group of 6 senior NGOs (list  is available in the concept note) who are working in the rural development sector since 2 to 3 decades in Andhra Pradesh, have collective

We thank Sevabharati Karnataka, www.sevabharatikarnata.org from where we have picked up these files.

Sevabharati Karnataka is one of the organisations working on relief work. They are planning to build 2349 homes at a cost of Rs. 1 Lakh each in 19 villages across 7 affected districts. More information is available at their site:

http://www.sevabharatikarnataka.org 

'Alliance for 5 Life Sustaining Elements' ( ALSE), is a group of 6 senior NGOs (list  is available in the concept note) who are working in the rural development sector since 2 to 3 decades in Andhra Pradesh, have collective

Friends,

This being a water related portal, most of you reading this will be aware of how important is water to one. In recent days, you all might be seeing that there has been devastating floods and huge amount of destruction caused by Rain. It was really very painful for all of us to see the situation over in northern karnataka wherein people have lost almost everything - Houses and crops. For a farmer, water is everything. Without this, he cant even imagine his life.

Just imagine a farmer for whom water is something like a GOD suddenly becoming destructive. This is what has happened in many villages of northern Karnataka. Whole of Onion, sugarcane crops is completely blown away due to heavy rains.

We, a team of Volunteers from Aastha went to Ramdurga Taluk of Belgaum district to do our bit to all those who have been hit by heavy rains and floods. With the support of our Keane colleagues, we were able to collect huge amount of old clothes and donation. With the donation we received, we purachased, sarees, utensils, dhothi, towels, blankets, biscuits and with the assistance of Taluk tahsildar and local Village heads, we were able to support more than 200 families.

But, there were so many children crying out of hunger which made our hearts heavier than ever.

In the name of floods and heavy rain, it has made so many people homeless!!