That hackneyed phrase, water, water everywhere, but not a drop to drink, never did ring more true. The Okhamandal region of Jamnagar district, located on the tip of the Saurashtra peninsula, has the dubious distinction of being a drought-prone region despite being surrounded by water on three sides.

Until recently the villagers of Poshitra, one of the villages in this sub-district, had no option but to cultivate crops like bajra, jowar, etc that relied solely on rainwater. They also faced a severe drinking water crisis that began every February and lasted until the onset of the monsoon. The underground water here was brackish beyond a depth of 30 feet. The situation in Tupni village differed only in some particulars. Here the land was rocky and the water table extremely deep, making difficult the availability of water for irrigation.

Had these and other such villages waited for government assistance, they would probably still have been waiting. Fortunately for them, their plight caught the attention of Tata Chemicals, which has its chemicals complex in nearby Mithapur. The company had a history of working in the field of sustainable development and it had come to the aid of local communities in times of natural disasters. More importantly, from the water point of view, Mithapur and its adjoining township were the laboratories where Tata Chemicals perfected its water solutions, from reuse and recycling to substitution by seawater.

The task of stemming the damage and saving the situation for the villagers was allocated to the Tata Chemicals Society for Rural Development (TCSRD), set up by the company in 1980 to help improve the lives of communities living in and around Okhamandal. Relief and welfare work undertaken by TCSRD, useful as they were, offered only temporary relief. Something more needed to be done to enable the villages to become as self-reliant as possible. Sustainable development alone offered the promise of a lasting solution.

TCSRD's strategy for the villages of Okhamandal took shape around a comprehensive water management and watershed development project. The objectives were straightforward:

• To improve the economic condition of villagers by improving water availability.
• To improve the quality and availability of underground water.
• To increase irrigated land area.
• To build the capacities of local people.
• To promote suitable low-water using crops and cropping techniques.
• To improve the green cover of the villages and promote indigenous species.

The plan was to conserve rainwater by building check dams, bunds, percolation tanks, farm ponds and the like. TCSRD figured, rightly, that sustainable cultivation would ensure employment to farmers for the greater part of the year, insulating them from the vagaries of the monsoon and the demands of the agricultural cycle. Farmers would be able to employ landless labourers to work on their land, thereby generating additional employment. As a result, the standard of living of the entire village would improve.

TCSRD, in collaboration with the state government's District Rural Development Agency, acted as the implementing agency for the project in various villages. As part of the project, the Society hired the services of the Indian Resource Information and Management Technology, which did hydrology studies, tested soil conditions and mapped the areas where conditions were appropriate for water harvesting.

TCSRD took up the construction of water-harvesting structures in a total of 27 villages. The initiatives on this front included well recharging, deepening and de-silting of ponds and wells, and the construction or repair of check dams. The benefits were palpable: the storage capacity in the villages increased significantly to touch 150 million cubic feet of water. Once the primary aim of water availability was ensured, downstream projects targeting land improvement, animal husbandry and afforestation, among other programmes, were taken up.

It wasn't long before the project began to make a difference to the lives of the people. Thus far 103 medium and 365 small structures, including wells and plantations, have been completed under the programme. TCSRD found, to no real surprise, that the villagers were not only prepared to contribute a percentage of the total project expenditure, they are also willing to pay for the services they received. Village committees facilitate the distribution, use and payment mechanism for the water. Such collections have enabled the villagers to defray 70 to 80 per cent of the expense of constructing newer dams.

The direct economic gain per year from the project has been Rs 2-2.5 crore. Numbers such as these mean that the villagers have greater access to district authorities and banks. The quantity as well as quality of water now available to the villages involved in the project has improved substantially. The supplementary gains have been enormous: capacity building has led to the creation of new assets, increased awareness among the villagers as well as a sense of unity. The self-confidence thus brewed has seen the establishment of more than 85 self-help groups engaged in micro-finance activities.

What is most heartening about the project is that the management and ownership of all the water structures rests with the villagers, who are simultaneously owners, custodians and beneficiaries. TCSRD is clear about involving the villagers at every step of the process, since it is they who will gain from the resultant development. The broad idea is to reduce the dependence of the villagers on the Society and encourage them to take their own decisions.

Towards this end, TCSRD had to strive to win the confidence of the villagers. This was done through meetings and discussions with them and through the execution of what is known as 'participatory rural appraisals' (PRAs), which is a methodology for getting feedback from villagers. After a PRA is conducted a village watershed committee is formed, comprising representatives from a cross-section of the population. This committee has to ensure that work on various water-harvesting structures and related jobs runs smoothly.

Once the implementation process has been completed, the villagers, following a minimal training period, take over the task of managing the structure. The training helps them to think in terms of the community's welfare and the sustainability of the project. For example, there is always a risk that the availability of good water may encourage people to move towards the cultivation of crops that require huge amounts of water. The third phase of the project tackles issues of this nature. The goal here is to optimise the use of water and make appropriate agricultural interventions.

Tata Chemicals realises that the successful completion of this project could spell good news for areas with water problems similar to Okhamandal's. It has shown what can be achieved through a combination of water-management expertise and people involvement at the village level.