The main thing is the social control over ground water extraction and use - no borewells for irrigation (only for drinking water), no water- intensive crops like sugarcane. Water for irrigation should be taken only through dug wells. They have also worked out certain thumb rules like if they get good rainfall then they can take full rabi crop, if the rainfall is less then they bring down the area under rabi etc. They keep rainfall data meticulously and use it for crop planning and water use prioritisation. Because of this, even in years of continuous drought, there was no drinking water shortage. This is mainly because they plan according to the water available.

The improvement of the livestock economy has also helped marginal and small farmers significantly. Concerted efforts have been made to promote Hiware Bazar’s dairy industry as a means to improve the livelihood of all.Loans have been given to many small farmers. As a result, the number of milch animals in the village has increased. These developments are clearly linked to the fact that fodder availability has increased due to better productivity. Milk production in the village has also witnessed a more than 20 fold increase from 140 to 3,000 litres per day.

  • Underline sentences and make a lilst of steps that reflect the efforts taken for water conservation in Hiware Bazar.
  • What was the effort for planning agriculture according to the available water ?
  • If you have access to internet, watch a documentary about Hiware Bazar at http://bit.ly/kothL1

However, one of the learnings has been that groundwater extraction cannot be controlled at a small unit or within a village boundary. Neighboring villages started going for deep borewells and started extracting groundwater over which Hiware Bazar had no control. Hence, we need institutional norms and understanding at a much larger unit like sub-basin or river basin.

Water as a Common pool resource.

Over the past few decades, groundwater has become the main source of water especially for domestic use and agriculture. This tremendous increase in the use of groundwater has significant impact on water availability and access to it.

The current laws about groundwater in many states are both outdated and inappropriate. They were developed at a time when groundwater was a marginal source of water. Today, shallow and deep tube wells have the potential to draw a lot of water. What should be the judicious way of using this water?

Current laws on ground water use are inappropriate because the basic link between access to groundwater and land ownership on which these rules are based are flawed. Since groundwater has to be extracted from the land above, a link was established between land ownership and control. The water drawn from the

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