Many of the labourers are scheduled caste (SC) women, who, along with other men and women in the area, are all part of the Pani Morcha of Barra village in Hazaribag, adjoining Bagodar block of Giridih, in Jharkhand.

Later that evening in Barra village there is a heated debate on the slow pace of work. Also, some criticism about some of the decisions. In the end though, most people agree with Tribhuwan, head of the steering committee of the Pani Morcha.

This time, they say, come what may, the irrigation work will be completed and the villages greened. After all, it was not often that the administration agreed to sanction more than Rs 57 lakh for an irrigation scheme.

People’s struggle for water in the villages of Atka and Barra is not new; it dates back almost three decades. Atka, Barra and the surrounding villages are populated by tribals, dalits and people belonging to other backward classes (OBCs).

The majority of landholdings here are small and were acquired under the Bhoodan movement. Farmers have been unable to make optimum use of their land because of lack of irrigation facilities and scanty rainfall.

The terrain is undulating and, at present, barren. It is flanked by an east-west range of hills covered in thin sal forest. The hills are the source of numerous streams that feed the river Sagdhava with perennial water. The soil is good and, if irrigated, capable of sustaining a number of cash and food crops as well as bamboo groves and orchards.

Back in the mid-1970s, a group of villagers went all the way to Delhi to demand an irrigation system for their land. A scheme to build a minor dam on the Sagdhava was sanctioned, but the engineer in charge ignored the advice of local people on where the dam should be built. Even as the dam was being constructed, the river changed course and the water cut a deep gully into the soft rock. Work was abandoned and the irrigation scheme left incomplete.

The issue was later taken up by the Naya Sawera Vikas Kendra (NSVK), a PACS Programme CSO closely associated with Ekta Parishad (EP), an organisation committed to the Gandhian approach for justice and people’s control over their livelihoods.

NSVK has been working in Giridih and two other districts in Jharkhand for around four years.

NSVK and EP were keen to organise a large-scale awakening in Giridih under the slogan ‘Har haath ko kaam chahiye, bundook nahi, kudal chahiye’. Loosely translated, this means: ‘We need implements of work (shovels or kudals) for all hands; not guns’.

NSVK-EP’s activities include the formation of morchas, or people-based platforms organised around a particular issue. These morchas also do advocacy on a wider and broader level. The process brings together a team of grassroots workers and cadre that can focus on mobilisation, documentation and advocacy around a particular issue-based campaign until tangible results are achieved.

Since the demand for water emerged as the main issue in a door-to-door survey undertaken by NSVK in Atka and Barra, it was decided to launch a mass movement for water. A number of options like petitions and rallies were considered and dropped as they had proved ineffective in the past.

The people decided that they would not wait for the government to take action; they would begin work constructing a canal between the reservoir created by the incomplete dam and three feeder tanks.

Subsequently, NSVK sat with local leaders and drew up a strategy for organising a ‘yuva shram shivir’ or youth work camp. At its core was the concept of ‘shramdan’, or voluntary labour, which is central to NSVK-EP’s development paradigm.

It was decided to rope in eight command area villagers to form a Pani Morcha with representatives from all the families in the area. They, in turn, elected a steering committee of 33 people, including 17 women, to plan and oversee all activities.

The Pani Morcha held six meetings, with around 100 people attending each meeting, before the shivir. Members of the steering committee then formulated the purpose of the shivir, people’s expectations, organisational problems and the arrangements necessary for a five-day voluntary labour programme.

The shivir was held from April 10 to 14, 2006. It was inaugurated by S L Subba Rao, a senior Gandhian and leader of Ekta Parishad. Several EP workers from Chhattisgarh, Madhya Pradesh and Bihar also attended the shivir to lend their support.

Around 130 volunteers from 10 districts participated in the shivir, staying at the site for all five days. In addition, 400 villagers joined in the shramdan, digging the canal (a little over half-a-kilometre long) in the mornings before carrying out their everyday activities in the village.

As part of the advocacy effort, an invitation was extended to the North Chhota Nagpur Divisional Commissioner (DC) S N Pandey who attended a day’s proceedings. The event was extensively covered by the media. Pandey immediately sanctioned Rs 57,95,000 towards the irrigation work, under the following heads:

• Cleaning and renovating a tank -- Rs 660,000.
• Renovating a second tank -- Rs 725,000.
• Constructing a canal from the reservoir to one of the tanks -- Rs 23,10,000.
• Constructing a canal from the tank to fields in Barra -- Rs 21,00,000

Pandey also officially appointed NSVK-EP to work jointly with the block development officer to see that the scheme was implemented. Some work under the scheme is being done under the National Rural Employment Guarantee Scheme (NREGS).

As a lot of fallow land will become cultivable after the irrigation scheme is completed, the Pani Morcha has set up a system to distribute land to the landless. The steering committee will conduct village surveys and prepare a list of potential beneficiaries. From this list, a land allocation committee will suggest, to the block development officer, the names of families that should be given surplus/government land.

The Pani Morcha is set to continue working on other defunct and silted-up irrigation works.

It is hoped that after the Sagdhava project is completed, by end of 2007, it will provide seasonal irrigation to over 1,200 acres in eight villages in the districts of Hazaribag and Giridih. A total of 2,730 households are expected to benefit from the scheme.

The water level in village wells should rise once water flows out of the reservoir and into the tanks, which are at lower levels. With the increased availability of water and local food production, a drop in migration is also expected.