WOTR’s operations began in 1993 from Maharashtra’s Ahmednagar district. Today, we have a presence in 12 districts — Ahmednagar, Aurangabad, Amravati, Beed, Dhule, Jalna, Nashik, Pune, Raigad, Satara, Wardha and Yavatmal. These fall under five distinct sub-regions namely Western Maharashtra, Khandesh, Konkan, Vidarbha and Marathwada.
Maharashtra
Ongoing Projects
Watershed Development Projects (12)
Community Development Projects (2)
Water Stewardship Initiative (1)
Climate-Resilient Agriculture Projects (4)
Water Management Projects (6)
Livelihoods Projects (4)
Health, Nutrition and Sanitation Projects (5)
Gender and Women Empowerment Projects (4)
Action Research Projects by WOTR Centre for Resilience Studies (6)
Waste Water Management Project (1)
(The list includes engagement with government programmes like MNREGA, the Department of Water Resources of Government of Maharashtra, aid agencies and CSR departments. For a full list of projects, see here)
Ground report / Farm ponds are helping smallholder farmers in rural Maharashtra: Santosh’s story
I am Santosh Dnyandev Satpute, a resident of Chincholi village, block Parner, Ahmednagar district, Maharashtra. My main occupation is agriculture.
I own 2 acres and 10 gunthas (1 guntha = approx. 1000 sqft) of ancestral land. We have been cultivating two crops a year such as pearl millet (bajara), moong (green gram), and fodder crops in the kharif season and Sorghum (jowar) and maize in rabi season.
Since our well runs dry in January-February, we cannot cultivate any crops in summer. We fall short of fodder too. To address this situation, in May 2017, I excavated and constructed a farm pond in my field. The total cost incurred was about Rs 76,000 including a plastic sheet.
A grant of Rs 25,000 from WOTR helped me undertake this investment towards a water harvesting structure. The water storage capacity of this farm pond is about 6.5 lakh litres. I am now able to irrigate 5 gunthas (approx. 5,000 sqft) of land to provide green fodder for my cross-bred cows even in summer. Every day, I get 50 kg of green fodder for the 3 cows (which drops to about 20 kg after December-January). Now, I am able to sustain my livelihood choice of being a dairy farmer.
Updates
Soil and water conservation works carried out on 4,911 ha of land
496 drip irrigation units and 773 sprinkler units installed
890 crop demos conducted in Maharashtra and 1,448 farmers adopted Systematic Crop Intensification (SCI)
Under the agro-meteorology initiative to help climate-resilient agriculture, 10,13,721 advisories were sent to 13,455 farmers through mobile SMS
A total of 5,368 soil health cards were distributed
17 livelihood training activities were initiated such as beekeeping and cake making, phenyl-making and production of jam, jelly, soft toys, etc.
27,340 people attended training and capacity building activities
58 health camps benefitted 4,972 people
The growth and nutrition of 2,978 children were assessed through Child Growth Monitoring
55 Vidarbha farm widows were assisted under the Women in Distress project
PUBLICATIONS IN FOCUS
Watershed Development, Resilience and Livelihood Security: An Empirical Analysis
The study ‘Watershed Development, Resilience and Livelihood Security: An Empirical Analysis seeks to explore whether watershed development does contribute to building resilience and adaptive capacities of local communities and their ecosystems.
Watershed Development in India: Economic Valuations and Adaptation Considerations
This paper examines how economic valuation can improve our understanding of watershed development and how to overcome challenges related to data collection, valuing direct and indirect benefits, and climate change adaptation.
Water Stewardship in Rainfed Agrarian Maharashtra
The article written by Eshwer Kale and Marcella D’Souza was published in the compendium ‘Water Conservation and Saving in Agriculture: Initiatives, Achievements and Challenges in Maharashtra’ by the Water Resources Department (WRD), Government of Maharashtra. The article ‘Water Stewardship in Rainfed Agrarian Maharashtra’ is based on lessons learnt and observations from implementing a Water Stewardship Initiative (WSI) launched by WOTR.
Water Stewardship: Facilitating Communities for Responsible Water Management
WOTR’s Water Stewardship Initiative is aimed at transforming villagers into water-efficient and responsible users, who maintain and safeguard the precious water resources in each village.
‘Thoda toh Socho’ (Give it a little thought)
Our thought-provoking and funny film ‘Thoda toh Socho’ shows us the perils of using too much plastic in daily life and urges us to switch to more environment friendly alternatives.