NABARD Water Campaign - Sustainable Rural Development

To create awareness among rural communities regarding water conservation and water efficient technologies, NABARD launched a major education and communication campaign called Jal Jivan Hai or Water for Life, in partnership with Centre for Environment Education, on the occasion of World Water Day 2017. The campaign reached out to over a hundred thousand villages spread across 21 states of the country with the help of a specially trained cadre of youth called Krishi Jal Doots (KJD). Along with training, KJDs were provided with a kit containing educational resource materials to conduct "A day in a village" campaign module. They were also provided with a detailed manual on how to conduct the campaign. KJDs thus acted as facilitators and implementers of the campaign at the local level. The campaign was conducted with the objective of enabling mass participation and voluntary action on water harvesting, conservation and encouraging water use efficiency in agriculture.

The campaign designed and developed educational material to promote public awareness of the need for water conservation. The campaign adopted a cascading approach to enable the flow of knowledge to the grassroots. Training was provided to the over 200 Master Trainers identified by NABARD, who in turn trained over 8000 KJDs , developed the Master Trainers training manual and the 'A day in a village' campaign module. The KJDs worked in pairs to cover a hundred thousand villages. They met key people in the villages and identified 11 youth volunteers who helped them in running the campaign activities which included save water awareness rally/padyatra, water resource mapping, meetings with farmers and SHG women members and Krishi Jal Samvaad an event open to all the villagers to discuss issues related to water. This campaign not only created awareness but equipped village communities to prepare participatory water resource maps of their village. The KJDs also helped them develop a list of action points to further augment the village water resources through various means such as use of innovative, water efficient technologies and practices in farming, renovation of existing water harvesting structures, enhancing the potential of storage bodies, and creating new structures. Post campaign, debriefing workshops were held to obtain feedback from KJDs and capture the essence of the campaign.

In all, the KJDs have interacted with over one crore farmers, women, villagers and children during this campaign.

Water Campaign in North

CEE North facilitated activities in three states of northern India, namely Uttarakhand, Uttar Pradesh and Bihar. In each state, 10-12 water stressed districts were identified by NABARD. Partner NGOs working with NABARD were selected as district level master trainers. In each state 500-600 villages were covered under the campaign.

Regional Master Trainer Workshop : A two day workshop was organised in April by CEE North at NABARD Office, Lucknow, with over 28 master trainers from the three states participating. Participants were introduced to the format of campaign, IEC package and the reporting app. Senior officials from NABARD also addressed the participants regarding the expectations from the campaign. Master trainers were provided guidance on selection of Jal Doots in each village and their training. They were also given orientation on the use of the IEC material including posters, pamphlets and flip charts.

Jaldoot Training Workshop : In May 2017, Jal Doot training workshops were conducted by the respective master trainers in which CEE North team participated as resource persons, in Pithorgarh and Champawat (Uttarakhand), and Bahraich.

A Day in a Village Water campaign : In June 2017, CEE team visited two village level events in each state in the northern region covering Uttarakhand, Uttar Pradesh and Bihar to observe the awareness activities and their impact: Bhatevra and Pardi (Mirzapur District of Uttar Pradesh), Atodar and Silauta (Bahraich District, UP), Bichhai and Dharchula (Pithorgarh and Champawat

Districts respectively, Uttarakhand), Sishani and Gadahiya (East Champaran District, Bihar), and Basra and Basanpur Raghunath (West Champaran District, Bihar).

District level Debriefing Workshop : In July 2017, after completion of the campaign activities, a district level debriefing workshop was organised to record feedback from the KJDs, to share learnings related to water conservation from the field, and to build linkages with concerned departments. CEE North team facilitated debriefing workshops in Darbangha, East Champaran, Gopalganj, Kishanganj and West Champaran districts in Bihar; Rudraprayag, Tehri and Uttarkashi districts in Uttarakhand; and Basti, Banda, Chitrakoot, Mahoba, Bahraich, Sonbhadra, Hamirpur, Jalaun, Mirzapur, Lalitpur, Kaushambi and Jhansi districts in Uttar Pradesh.

State level Debriefing Workshop : In August 2017, state level debriefing workshops were conducted to assimilate learnings from all the districts of the respective state. CEE team participated in the state workshops held in Uttar Pradesh and Uttarakhand for sharing insights from the observations made during visits and the points that emerged from district level debriefing workshops.

Water Campaign in East

CEE Kolkata, in collaboration with NABARD Regional Office, Kolkata, implemented the various stages of the campaign across nine districts in West Bengal.

A two day training programme was conducted by CEE at NABARD Regional Office, Kolkata to orient 30 Master Trainers (from selected districts of West Bengal, Assam and Jharkhand) on April 19-20, 2017. It helped them understand the objective of the save water campaign, the communication strategy and how to conduct the campaign effectively to enable mass sensitisation at village level. The highlight of the training was the introduction of an interactive Mobile App, designed by CEE, for monitoring the activities at the grassroots level. CEE monitored"˜A day in a village" campaign (DVC) in two districts, namely, Birbhum and Burdwan, to assess the efficacy of the campaign.

CEE team conducted debriefing sessions across nine districts of West Bengal, and interacted with the Master Trainers (MTs) and Krishi Jal Doots (KJDs), encouraging them to share key takeaways and document the feedback generated while conducting the campaign at village level. The sessions also served as an interface where representatives from various line departments (district level) were present and KJDs and Jal Sahayaks could meet and communicate effectively for further interventions.

Water Campaign in Central

CEE Central staff supported the orientation of master trainers from Madhya Pradesh, Maharashtra and Chattisgarh. The programme was implemented in 16 districts in Maharashtra. In Chattisgarh, eight master trainers from eight districts were oriented to the programme. The campaign activities included awareness rally, resource mapping, need assessment and Jal Samvaad (i.e. focus group discussion among villagers, self-help groups, youth) to identify solutions and action plans for water conservation in their village.

In Chattisgarh, around 274 Krishi Jal Doots were oriented to the project activities and they disseminated the campaign in around 3875 villages across the state. The campaign helped to identify several water use related issues in the villages like water scarcity, ground water depletion, water borne diseases during rainy season, lack of awareness amongst farmers and general public about irrigation schemes, water conservation and hygiene measures. CEE consolidated the learnings by facilitating de-briefing workshops with the master trainers and KJDs. The inputs from the workshops were further shared during the NABARD state level workshop. The campaign helped in enabling people participation for water conservation and identifying areas for improvement in government schemes and delivery mechanisms for water conservation and sustainable use in the rural areas of the state.