Cynthia Rodrigues

The Dorabji Tata Trust is supporting Rural Communes, a voluntary organisation, in helping villages in Maharashtra's Raigad district turn the clock back on environmental disaster

If you tickle the earth with a hoe, she will laugh with a harvest. That is what people in numerous villages in the Raigad district of Maharashtra discovered. Today these villages resemble a veritable Garden of Eden, with numerous trees dotting the countryside.

A far cry from the situation a few decades ago. The indiscriminate felling of trees to procure wood for construction and firewood had shorn the land of its verdure. The effects were disastrous. Traditional medicinal plants and trees were dying and the ecosystem was getting affected. That was when Rural Communes (RC), a voluntary organisation, decided that it would not stand and stare while a precious resource was being lost.

Having conducted a socio-economic survey of the area, it found that the people, subsisting on a diet of rice, fish and crabs (which they caught themselves), were anaemic and malnourished. The scarcity of water had affected the people’s lifestyle.

The region, bordering the western ghats, is blessed with abundant rain (almost 2,599 mm a year). But the topography is such that the water drains away, leading to acute water shortage and forcing people to walk miles for water. There was no option but to migrate to other areas at the end of every monsoon.

Armed with this knowledge, RC embarked on Comprehensive Watershed Development, a programme that has helped turn back the clock. This process, supported in part by the Sir Dorabji Tata Trust, was initiated in six villages and 24 hamlets. Soil and water conservation measures, like de-silting of village ponds, staggered trenching, reforestation and bund improvement, were started. Thanks to these measures, the rainwater, obstructed from draining, percolated into the ground. Today villagers are assured of water throughout the year and migration has been reduced.

RC started as the dream of one man, Muneer Alawi, who felt compelled to create a change in society. Having founded RC in 1977 in Khopoli in Raigad district, he started the Graduate Volunteers Scheme. This course evolved into graduation in rural development. Later, he started the Village Level Workers Training (VLWT) programme. This one-year course is affiliated to Mumbai’s SNDT University. Students spend five days every month learning theory. The other 25 days are spent in the community, learning from the attitudes of people and from actions and interactions.

RC encouraged 15 landless families from the Katkari and Thakur tribes to lease land from the Marathas and cultivate it. Thus began the concept of collective farming. Today there are 30 such groups.

Each group cultivates rice during the monsoon and vegetables at other times. Thanks to the watershed programme, the water table has risen, enabling agriculture to flourish. One group, headed by Yashoda (an ex-VLWT student), picks 7 to 8 tonnes of tomatoes every day. Part of the yield is for self-consumption; the rest is sold in the nearby Pen market.

Yashoda is content. It has been 20 years since collective farming began. "Initially," she says, "we suffered a number of losses because of price fluctuations and transport system losses. Now we have mastered the game." Today Yashoda heads a self-help group which runs a bank that offers loans for start-up enterprises.

At every stage it was the villagers who drove the movement forward. As Mr Alawi says, "We act only as a catalyst, guiding and motivating them." An elected panch committee makes the decisions and oversees implementation of the programmes.

A race will not be able to empower itself if it seeks to do so at the cost of its weaker sections. RC’s strength lay in its willingness to utilise the skills of women and the landless among the village.

Self-help groups were formed to help women develop skills in planning, managing, account keeping, entrepreneurship development, etc. They were also educated on micro savings and credit activity, collective vegetable farming, food processing, etc.

RC also initiated the People’s Biodiversity Register (PBR), a study on how the watershed programme would affect local biodiversity. The documentation was done by Vivek Gour-Broome and Sanjay Thakur with the help of the villagers. PBR contains details of more than 300 plants and animals.

Currently, this has been done in Chavni and Khandas. The register, placed at the panchayat office, is not for documentation purposes alone. Says Mr Gour-Broome, a famous zoologist and an excellent photographer who has shot more than 400 pictures of Chavni’s biodiversity: "The register will serve as evidence that all these plants are indigenous to Chavni. India has already lost the patent on haldi because of lack of proof. It should not happen again."

Today Mr Gour-Broome, keen to provoke villagers into a debate on biodiversity, shows his slide show in every village. Should something threaten the villagers’ way of life, he wants them to strive to preserve it.

The written word can right many wrongs. RC was irked by the fact that the knowledge of traditional medicine was dying due to lack of documentation. When a vaid dies, his library of learning dies with him. To counter this, RC invited vaids to reveal their knowledge to the doctors and attendants at the local health centre.

RC demarcated 'medicinal plant conservation areas'. Attempts were made to cultivate traditional plants in these areas. When you conserve resources, you preserve them for the next generation, RC insisted.

The next step is the 'forest home garden'. The aim of this programme is to grow around one’s home everything needed for healthy living and sustainable development. This includes resources for medicine, building, cooking, etc. Over time, a forest village is created.

Villagers in Amba Valley grow spices, mango, brinjal, chawli, tondli, karipatta, banana, papaya, jackfruit, etc. Each family saves more than Rs 20,000 a year on this produce. Says Mr Alawi, "Money saved is money earned."

The youth are taught skills such as making cane furniture and utility items out of bamboo, food processing and manufacturing agricultural tools.

RC has performed a great service to the people of Raigad by empowering them to improve their situation. The efforts have ensured that Raigad’s glory does not lie only in its past.

Uploaded on July 11, 2003