Dewas District

Dewas district is situated between 75^o55’ and 77^o09’ Longitude 22^o19’ and 23^o19’ Latitude. The district is an important district of Malwa region of the state of Madhya Pradesh. The population as projected for the year 2001 is 13,10,968. There are 1058 habitated villages in the district. The district has 6 Tehsils and 5 Assembly segments. The total area of the district is 7020 Sq.kms. The district has 4,26,000 hect of land under agriculture out of which 1,66,161 hect is covered by irrigation facilities. It is important to mention here is that about 83% of the agricultural area covered under irrigation is irrigated through ground water sources i.e. wells and tubewells (Annexure 1). The major rivers of the district are Narmada, Kshipra, Kalisindh, and Lodhri. The average rainfall of the district is 1067.10 mm. The major crops are, soybean, cotton wheat and gram.

The soil is predominantly Black Cotton soil which is very fertile, but at the same time, it does not allow rain water to percolate down owing to its impervious character. Since the topography of the district is rolling terrain, most of the rain water drains away into the rivers and flows out of the district.

The Malwa region, is considered as the commercial centre of the state with pockets of rapid industrialisation in Dewas, Indore and Pithampur. During the summer of 1998, I personally felt that an urgent study of the water situation of the district had to be made. I took an immediate meeting with all concerned district heads i.e. agriculture, irrigation, public health engineering, hydrology depts. etc., to have a basic idea about the water resources and its use in the district. The replies given by the district officers were astonishing and alarming. Barring a very few irrigation networks in the district, the farmers of the district mostly depend on irrigation through tube wells and wells. This resulted in drilling of many tubewells which rose enormously from 3887 in 1990 to 14172 in 1998. Adding fuel to the fire, the industrial units in Dewas city also relied on tube wells to meet the demand of water for running their units. The number of tube wells of P.H.E.Dept., increased from 2338 to 5416 during the said period. The number of tube wells of inhabitants of the city rose from 350 to 1486 during the same period. Dewas district has about 330 village tanks. Since most of the tanks had silt formation and not much efforts were made for desilting, more or less 90 percent of the tanks dry up in January – February. As such the villagers had to depend on dug wells and tube wells for their domestic use. As a result of above mentioned factors, the ground water table was depleting alarmingly and if not contained at the earliest, the coming generation would never forgive us for the irreparable damage that’s being done.

Dewas, being, in close proximity to the commercial city of Indore, has been subject to rapid industrialisation and growth. The population growth of Dewas is higher than the state average. As a result, the pressure of the population on the available resources is very high. The demand for water is increasing every day with no on-going projects or programmes to increase supply to meet the demand. The enormous use of water on the one hand and the top cover of black cotton soil which does not let the rain water reach the underground reservoir on the other hand resulted in the ground water reaching an abysmal low level. In the year 1990, the water was transported by rail to meet the requirement of the city. In the winter parliamentary session of 1999-2000, the Hon’ble minister of water resources gave a reply in Lok Sabha that in 71 districts of 12 states of our country, the ground water level depleted by four meters further. Dewas district is one of them. The district has now been identified by the Central Ground Water Board as one of the critical districts. As such this has become the biggest challenge for the administration and the public representatives. There was a need to get the public at large to participate in this mammoth task, for it to be a real success.

The geographical features of the area made the natural ground water recharge minimal. The only options left were to depend on various techniques of "Rain Water Harvesting"

Rain Water Harvesting:

"Rain water harvesting" is not a new concept for the district as there are 19 watersheds (13 under Rajeev Gandhi Watershed Mission and 6 under NWDPRA) where Rain Water Harvesting measures are being adopted. But these watersheds cover only 69 villages of the district out of a total of 1058 villages i.e. a mere 6.8%. Since the water crisis was in the whole of the district, it was urgently felt that unless rest of the villages adopt Rain Water Harvesting techniques on a large scale including the urban population, no major change in the present scenario can be expected. The task was mammoth and could not be done with available govt. machinery and financial resources. This necessitated the birth of "BHUJAL SAMVARDHAN MISSION, DEWAS" which came into being in May 1999. This gave a big impetus in the field of Rain Water Harvesting as people from all walks of life voluntarily participated and put their all round efforts towards the achievement of goals of the mission.

The task was implemented in a planned manner. The District advisory committee and block level implementation committee were comprised of elected representatives and social workers on the one hand and the technical experts from the govt. and others, who provided the technical input, on the other hand. Officers of the district administration were included in these committees to act as co-ordinators.

The mission had to be executed at two levels, one at the administrative level and the other at social level. At the social level it was primarily a mass awareness programme. This component of the mission was highly successful during the summer of 1999. For mass awareness a systematic campaign was carried out through press releases, workshops at block and district levels, camps organized at the Panchayat level etc. The timing of peak summer selected for the campaign was also quite appropriate and helped in convincing the people of the utility of the mission, as acute water shortage was felt all around. The response was overwhelming with leaders, officers and the people at large wholeheartedly participating in "Shramdan". The farmers came forward voluntarily to offer services of their agricultural equipment like tractors along with plough, free of cost for the repair and deepening of old water bodies like ponds, tanks etc. In my opinion there cannot be any laid down procedure to be followed for mass awareness as it involves the intricacies of human behaviour which is variable and largely depends on customs, way of living, economic conditions, immediate felt need etc. It even varies within a district. Keeping this in view, in urban areas it was decided to use college students specially girls and senior citizens for motivating the urban masses and the response to this move has been very encouraging.

The aims of the mission are:

1. Increase in the ground water through different structures.

2.  Solving the drinking water problem of the urban and rural areas.

3.  Improvement in the contemporary techniques of ground water recharge used by the villagers through technical input.

4.  To assure public participation in the field of ground water recharge so as to make this mission a way of life and a culture is thereby developed.

5.  To save time and energy in transporting water from distant places, so that it can be utilized in more productive ways.

6.  To maintain the ecological balance.

The works carried out under the mission since its inception are summarized as below:

Activity Achievement (No. of structures)

1. Deepening of tanks. 309
2. Creation of new tanks. 23
3. Nalla bunding structure & deepening. 738
4. Dug well’s cleaning & deepening. 244
5. Roof water harvesting. 1000
6. Percolation pits. 2478

Cost of the works carried out under the mission is approximately Rs. 518.43 lacs out of which public participation component is Rs. 474.94 lacs i.e. about 91.61%.

The water storage capacity of 332 tanks in which work of repair and deepening was taken up including 23 new tanks, is 1818.26 hect. m. In 738 Nallah bunding structures, the quantity of water stored against the bund is estimated to be 189.25 hect. m. In the similar fashion the useable capacity of wells and bawaries is made as 5.98 hect.m and by the 2478 percolation pits the storage capacity is made as 1.49 hect.m.

Most importantly 1000 roof water harvesting structures have been installed in the district under the mission, during summer 2000. The total quantum of artificial recharge is estimated to be 11.54 hect. m. through these structures. The advantage of roof water harvesting technique is that, in this system the recharge is through direct injection and as such the full quantity of water is utilized in recharging the deep aquifer without any transit losses.

Another significant aspect is that through Dewas district has an average rainfall of 1000 mm the actual rainy days range from 30 days in Tonk Khurd to 61 days in Khategaon. The average rainy days for the district as around 45 days(Annexure – 2). Hence, each rainy day is very precious and each rainy day has to be captured and every drop of rain has to be conserved. If a single rainy day is not covered that amount of rainwater is lost for the entire year.

Therefore, it is very clear that we have been exploiting the surface and sub-surface water for so many decades, that a time has now come, where concerted efforts have to be undertaken for water conservation.

Rain Water harvesting methods have to be adopted to bring up the ground – water level and also to check the depletion of ground – water table.

These efforts will have to be taken up not only by the governmental machinery but also by the involvement of people at large, voluntary agencies, public representatives etc.

Annexure – 1

Annexure - 2