Self-Governance and watershed development programme: a case from Eastern India

Abstract

Community participation in watershed management is one of the features of post watershed project implementation era. Community participation refers to the involvement of watershed beneficiaries in watershed activities, it is essential for the sustainability of the programme. Watershed is implemented by the Government of India (GOI) and State governments to deal with the problem of runoff reduction, soil degradation and improve the productivity of rain fed agriculture. To explore the potentiality of the rainfed agriculture, Watershed Development Programme (WSDP) is implemented with the involvement of the local community. However, the variation in participation is found among all the caste and communities. Under this background, the present study has carried out in Asurmunda micro-watershed located in Balangir district of western Odisha, India. Broadly, the objective of the study is to figure out the level of community participation in WSDP. The sociological and anthropological techniques are used to fulfil the objective of the present study. The overall empirical findings of the study show that the Watershed Committee (WC) and User Groups (UGs) created during the watershed are mainly dominated by male, rich, head reach and upper caste farmers. On the other hand the participation of women, landless and marginal community is not higher. Their participation is quite less because of lack of awareness and non-closeness with the PIA. Considering the importance of their participation in watershed activities the participatory institutions must meet the emerging challenges. Participation can be improved by regular training and capacity buildings programmes, conflict management and appropriate awareness activities.