The Government of India, Ministry of Rural Development, have given very high priority and great importance to the Watershed Development Programme from the year 1995-96. Though belated, it is a right step for the rural poverty alleviation as well as towards the drought proofing in the vulnerable areas. However, our experiences in Rural Development during the post Independence phase, clearly suggest that, very well planned programmes have not yielded the desirable results, inspite of abnormally heavy investments. Our main problems are at the implementation level, and therefore, most of our failures could be attributed to grossly bad and to a great extent mis-managed implementation. If all our Rural Development programmes had been implemented very well with fairly good degree of proficiency, integrity and transparency, the rural scenario would have been much better than what it is after 53 years of Independence. Also often, uniform pattern of programmes and allocations with uniform guidelines throughout the length and width of our large country with enormous local variations are not expected to work uniformly well at all places.

In the interest of better results of our prestigious ongoing watershed development programme, I suggest some points for the consideration of the Government of India, Ministry of Rural Development.

1. Watershed Development programme is basically an area development programme. In any Area Development Programme wherever potential exists and feasible, the water resources development (in this case minor irrigation works) has to be given very high priority. In several DPAP areas there is enormous potential for small-scale water resources development. It is the availability of water that can beat the drought successfully. No other programme even intensive soil and moisture conservation interventions will have half such impact in meeting the drought. Therefore, to repeat, wherever possible, the water resources development has to be given top priority. However, the present pattern of assistance does not permit water resources development, as it is capital intensive.

2. In view of above, either sufficient allocation of funds be made in the projects with water resources potential or special additional funds should be arranged for such watershed projects with potential for the small scale water resources development. Particularly, in all our tribal regions, the potential for water resources development is enormous, but it cannot be harnessed under the existing pattern of assistance.

3. There is some scope for water resources development programme under the special project provision in the Swarnjayanti Gram Swarozgar Yojana (Chapter XI of the Guidelines). However, these special project provisions in SGSY have some inbuilt lacuna, which proved big hurdles. Very strangely, it has excluded NGOs from the implementation of such special projects. Interestingly, International Organisations are allowed to implement such special projects, but not the Indian NGOs against the fact that international organisations seldom implement the programmes, while large numbers of innovative and successful special projects have been implemented by NGOs in our country. There are large numbers of examples of such successful work by NGOs.

4. Such SGSY special projects should also include the Area Development Programme like water resources as mentioned at points 1 & 2 above and in such Area Development Programme the consideration should be for the Area Development without considering the criteria of BPL families. For such Area Development Programme in the vulnerable regions is taken up there is no need for the consideration of BPL criteria as it is fact that whatever may be the statistics available at the block or district level, any village without irrigation would be in a very bad condition. Also, there are examples in which the BPL census is not done properly, often even politically worked out in which real BPL families are left out from the BPL list and reasonably good families are included in the BPL list. Relying on such grossly wrong data, often deserving villages would be left out in the development programmes such as special projects under SGSY.

5. It is also suggested that instead of provision of 15 % of the budget of SGSY for the special projects, it should be increased to 20 % for the special projects under SGSY, so that such projects may be taken up on large scale by Government agencies as well as by proven NGOs.

6. With the increasing politicization of Rural Development programmes at the grass root level, which has witnessed mushrooming of new NGOs promoted under the political patronage and by unscrupulous elements, care has to be taken that on one side NGOs with ill-motives are not encouraged and on other side NGOs with good track record, but without political patronage are not side lined or ignored. One way to support good NGOs and also Business Houses could be the selection of NGOs to be done at the State level and the reputed NGOs working in more than one State may be selected by the Government of India, Department of Rural Development, to assign watershed projects and also special projects or any other Rural Development programmes.

7. Alike many previous programmes, the watershed development programme is also turning out to be a target-oriented programme in which the States and Districts are seen to be more keen to achieve the physical and financial targets rather than quality work. With our experience and keen observation in five States, we can confidently state that at many places the watershed programme is not of desirable quality. If this situation is not checked and corrected, we will once again find after ten years that such good programme has also not made the desirable impact on people and environment in rural areas. It is therefore, of utmost importance that the right kind of NGOs are selected and also since most of the projects in most of the States are entrusted to the Government agencies, the implementing agency should be fully equipped for the implementation of the programme properly.

8. In many States and many watershed projects, proper training before the commencement of the programme and during the implementation has not been given due importance. It is therefore, essential that in the second phase of this programme, utmost importance is accorded to proper training before and during the implementation of watershed development programme. The training programme should be assigned to the Training Institutes, which have good experience in managing watershed development programme. Since the watershed development programme is a field programme, the training should also be largely field oriented and not confined to the theories and classroom exercises.

9. The exposure to the successful watershed development projects would be of much more importance to the implementing agencies as well as to the watershed committees. In each State, well-implemented project should be identified and new PIAs and Committee members be taken for the exposure visits to such projects. Nationally reputed watershed projects could be visited by the PIAs of other States also.

10. As our tribal regions are the most backward and the condition of the people as well as of environment in such regions is vastly far from satisfactory, there should be special liberal norms and policy for the watershed and other rural development programmes for the tribal regions. In the tribal regions, the coordination between the Tribal Sub Plan functionaries and DRDAs should be very strong so that both the programmes supplement each other in making the impact much better.

11. To encourage corporate sector, the provision of 35 CC of Income Tax Act as was applicable during the period 1978 to 1984 should be restored rather than existing provision under 35 CC, because the earlier provisions were more favourable and much more decentralized as the powers for the approval were given to the committee at the State Level, consisting of Income Tax Commissioner and the Secretary, Rural Development.

12. The FCRA - Foreign Contribution Regulation Act has become absolute, redundant and irrelevant in the present overall liberalization in the financial sector. It is strange that when a serious Act like FERA has been revoked, the Act like FCRA, which relates with the development still exists blocking the inflow for the development of rural areas.

13. The CAPART has been created to support the programmes of NGOs. Both, the CAPART and Government of India have to deliberate seriously as to why many highly reputed NGOs who worked with CAPART successfully and satisfactorily in the past, have virtually withdrawn from the CAPART programme. If CAPART is revitalized and becomes dynamic organization in helping the genuine NGOs at much larger scale, it can help a lot to NGO sector. At present many NGOs feel that it is easy and better to deal directly with the Government Departments, rather than with the CAPART. The Government and the CAPART have to search for the reasons for this situation and rectify the same in the interest of Rural Development in General and NGO sector in particular. What we need is that the CAPART should simplify its procedure, bring in speed in clearing the projects and also encourage right kind of NGOs on their own merits and encourage them to work at wider scale. If this is done, CAPART could be given more funds to support right kind of NGOs.

02.09.2000