×
ADVERTISEMENT
ADVERTISEMENT
ADVERTISEMENT

Tiding over water crisis

Last Updated 30 May 2016, 18:32 IST

A  nondescript junction between Haveri and Ranebennur on the National Highway 4 (NH4) puts you right in front of Kakola, one of the few villages in the semi-arid region of North Karnataka that did not suffer drought this summer. The villagers in Kakola are not looking at the sky despite rain deficit in 2015. Their borewells are pumping out water with the same force as they do in monsoon. The most the villagers had to do was to send the machine 100 feet deeper into the earth.

Kakola, whose betel leaf was famous in faraway places like Pakistan and Afghanistan and whose vegetables were sought after in North Karnataka, went dry in 2003. Multinational seed companies played a major role in the crisis by luring farmers to grow water-intensive crops.

By 2004, some people were thinking of abandoning the village altogether. However, grit prevailed and, more importantly, there came a ‘saviour’ — as some villagers call Channabasappa Shivappa Kombli — whose watershed projects have saved them today. “I didn’t do anything special. I happened to attend a programme organised by Prakash Bhat of the BAIF Institute for Rural Development, where I learnt the basics of soil and water conservation. I just tried my bit,” said Channabasappa.

A ray of hope
The ingenuity of Channabasappa was in applying this knowledge to his village. Kakola has 2,400 acres of land surrounded by hills in all the directions. The village receives nearly 70% of its annual rainfall in the days between pre-monsoon and beginning weeks of monsoon. Rain used to flood the fields and damage the crops. But, within 2-3 months after the monsoon, borewells would go dry. The gravel-mixed loose soil would not hold water, adding to the troubles.

Channabasappa saw a ray of hope in Kakola’s hundreds of wells that had gone dry. “I tried to convince my friends in the village to build feeder canals to direct rainwater to the wells. Some dismissed and others called me crazy. Many did not know anything about the groundwater table,” Channabasappa said.

Frustrated, Channabasappa started digging canals for wells in his 2 fields. Some joined hands when Channabasappa’s friend, Basavaraj Kudurihala, backed the idea. Volunteers worked day and night to ensure that the flooding water from the hills goes straight to the wells without inundating the fields. As many as 22 wells stood ready for monsoon.

And then came the downpour. “At 2 am, we went out to the fields and confirmed that some wells were up to the brim,” said Shanmugappa Hittalamani, who was one of the first volunteers to join hands with Channabasappa. “But the next morning, we were disappointed. There was hardly any water in those wells,” he added.

The wells filled up and went dry in a cycle as the monsoon ended. The villagers were on the verge of giving up their efforts when news broke that dry borewells in the vicinity of the wells have started working after years. This bolstered them and by 2007, 112 wells were feeding several borewells.

In 2005, when road contractors offered to build a burial ground in exchange for the soil from agriculture field for constructing NH4 flyover near the village, the villagers had better plans. They wanted to dig a tank. They raised Rs 1.3 lakh to buy uncultivated land and soon the Poojara’s Tank was ready. Today, it has become their best watershed project.

Water conservation here goes a step further with Shivashankarappa N Kudurihala. From the last 10 years, the farmer has been using waste water from the drainage to cultivate his 2.5-acre land. His banana plantation seemed to be breezing through the burning summer. His borewell is full, but he prefers not to waste this water, which flows next to his field.

Channabasappa has also led Kakola closer to nature with annual afforestation programmes. Schools in the village celebrate the ‘Green Festival’. Of the 80,000 saplings planted on 3 hills in 2004, at least 50,000 have grown up to become trees today. In 2006, Channabasappa was chosen as the ‘man of the year’ by a vernacular daily. The then chief minister H D Kumaraswamy visited Kakola and appreciated his work.

Kumaraswamy noted that he and his team of volunteers had done for ‘free’ the work that would have cost the government over Rs 1.5 crore. Water conservation techniques have taken Channabasappa to all nooks and corners of Karnataka.

However, Channabasappa said many in Kakola have not understood the significance of water conservation and waste water every day. True, all is not as well. Farmers, who rejected water-intensive crops in favour of desi ones — millets and others — after the 2004 ‘water revolution’, have returned to commercial crops. The seed companies, which abandoned them during drought years, have also returned.

Commercial crops
Today, it is hard to find any other crop in the village apart from BT cotton. Gone are the days of rich vegetables. The number of betel plantations has gone down drastically despite the availability of water. “We are filling our fields with insecticides and chemicals to save BT cotton. This may as well turn our ground and water toxic,” Channabasappa rued.

But Karibasanagowda Policegowda stands as an exception for sticking to organic farming despite all odds. The 58-year-old farmer switched to horticulture from regular farming 2 decades ago. However, the lemon and sapota plants, which raked in the moolah earlier, have been throwing up new challenges everyday. “In case I am pushed to farming, I would not go beyond desi crops,” he said.

Channabasappa, who heads the local Natural Resources Development Association, said he has been stressing that organic farming is a must to fight drought. “The idea has few takers. After our efforts, groundwater was available at 150-200 feet. Now, we are near 300-350 feet. People pump more water to grow more cotton. Everybody wants to end drought, but nobody wants to know how to do it, let alone practise it,” he said.

Parched earth
Karnataka farmers suffered crop loss worth Rs 15,635 crore in the 2015-16 crop year.
Drinking water crisis was reported in more than 3,200 villages.
In April, the State government identified Haveri as one of the 12 heatwave-affected districts.

ADVERTISEMENT
(Published 30 May 2016, 17:28 IST)

Follow us on

ADVERTISEMENT
ADVERTISEMENT