water tanks as ecosystemsicta.uab.cat/etnoecologia/docs/[61]-water_tanks_as_ec… · ·...

Contents

Acknowledgments - 3 - Acronyms - 4 -

1 Introduction - 5 -

2 Description of water tanks as human-made ecosystems - 12 -

Water tanks technology and way of water - 13 - Ecology of water tanks ecosystems - 17 - Natural resources of tank ecosystems - 26 - Multiple uses and functions of the tank ecosystem - 28 - Past and present of water tanks - 32 -

3 Current Management of tanks and Stakeholders - 36 -

Management of tank: functions, resources and uses - 36 - Stakeholders in tank management - 45 -

4 Methodology - 54 -

- 54 - Research methods on data collection

5 Description of cases of study - 67 -

Environmental description of the area - 68 - First case of study: Endiyur - 71 - Village history - 73 - Demography - 74 -

- 75 - Economical activities

Administrative organisation and institutions - 76 - Village society and social life - 79 - Natural Resources of the village - 81 - Tank ecosystem description - 82 - Tank management - 86 - Village history - 96 - Demography - 97 -

- 98 - Economic activities

Administrative organisation and institutions - 99 - Village society and social life of Attur - 100 - Natural Resources of the village - 102 - Tank ecosystem description - 102 - Tank management - 105 - Management deficiencies in our study cases - 109 -

‐ 1 ‐

Water tanks as ecosystems P. Ariza, E. Galán, T. Serrano

6 Results and discussion - 112 -

Free listing - 112 - Knowledge tests - 118 - Pilesort 143 Knowledge tests analisis: correspondence between knowledge and integrated use of the tank’s elements. 146 Discussion about the integrated perception of the ecosystem and the consideration (or not) of all the uses, functions and roles of water tank ecosystems. 148

7 Conclusions 152

General conclusions 152 Conclusions from our study cases 155

8 References 160

‐ 2 ‐


Acknowledgments We couldn’t enjoy so much all the work of this project without the support of our translators, Nithya and Raja Anamalai. Thank you very much for all the nice moments together and for the affection given as a family.

We would like to address sincerely thanks to Victoria Reyes, Olivia Aubriot, Ignatius Prabhakar and Joan M. Alier, our scientific supervisors for all their help, and for giving us the opportunity to do this project.

We would like also to thank Anupama, K., Kannan, and Arun for being always available and helpful in our stay in India. Thanks also to David Chakrawarthy, for being there in the special moments.

Thanks to Judith Saus for sharing this experience sincerely and to help in the approach of the first steps.

Thank you to Ponnuchammy and Olivier Lefebvre for the great help given in the field and the office work in the French Institute of Pondicherry.

We would like to express also our gratitude to Elamurgan, Mogan, Ladha, Erumalai (Endiyur Nattamai), Erumalai (Joint secretary of the Water User Association in Endiyur), Tamichedi (Women Pattadar Group member in Endiyur), Vinayagam (Panchayat President in Endiyur), Muruvambal (Panchayat president Attur Colony) and many other villagers for making so nice our stay in Endiyur in Attur, and to facilitate our work. Thanks a lot to our children Parvati, Durkha Devi and Apu, for the games, smiles and laughs.

We also would like to thank to all the interviewed people from the NGOs, Raghunathan (CERD), Jürgen Pütz (Palmyra), M.S. Shanmugam, A. Gurunathan, R. Pushparaj (DHAN), Judith D’Souza and Gilles Boulicot (Auroville Water Harvest) and Baskar, assistant engineering from Marakkanam PU, for being so welcoming to explaining to us their field experience.

Special thanks to Albert Folch, Eduard Ariza and Hug March to consolidate the previous ideas, the theoretical approach and the final redaction of the report.

Finally of course, thank to our families who trust in us from the beginning to succed with this project.

‐ 3 ‐


Acronyms

TII Traditional Irrigation Instituion

EEC European Economic Community

WUA Water Users Association

PWD Public Works Department

NGO Non‐Governmental Organization

PRI Panchayati Raj Institutions

MLA Member of Legislative Assembly

MLP Member of Legislative Parliament

NREGA National Rural Employment Guarantee Act

NREGS National Rural Employment Guarantee Scheme

PU Panchayat Union

GO Government Order

‐ 4 ‐

1

Introduction

Water is one of the most important elements in the world. Water constitutes the basis of life, and it can be found practically everywhere in the biosphere. Water covers 72% of the surface of the Earth and represents between 50% and 90% of the mass of living beings. Although this natural resource is considered renewable, flowing in a cycle in the ecosystems and all around the planet, it is important to say that water is also potentially exhaustible.

Nowadays and in the future, the world has to deal with a global economical, social, and environmental problem called water crisis, expressed mainly by the growing water scarcity. Water crisis is one of the most extended, serious and invisible face of the ecological devastation of Earth. In 1998, 28 countries suffered water scarcity, and it is foreseen that in 2025 the number will reach 56. Projections suggest that the number of people without basic water supply will increase from 131 millions in 1990 to 817 millions in 20251 . In India, water availability per capita has declined by 40‐60% between 1955 and 1990, and most regions will have severe water problems by 20252. It is considered that one country has a water crisis when the volume of water available per capita during one year is below 1000 cubic meters . In 1951, India had 3450 m3 3 of water available per capita and per year. At the end of 1990s it reached 1250 m3, and it is foreseen that in 2050 the availability of water will be only 760 m3, being then in a serious water scarcity . 4

It is necessary to explain here the difference among drought and scarcity. Drought is a lack of precipitation during certain period of time (sometimes very long or chronic), that is explained by climatic factors and nowadays influenced by the climate anthropogenic change. Scarcity is just a negative balance between inputs and requirements. We should distinguish between physical scarcity and socially created scarcity when requirements increase because of changes in patterns of production or consumption. It is important here to remark that along history, the man has taken some different measures to reduce the vulnerability to droughts adopting different ways of management, to transform the scarcity in abundance. Among this kind of measures, the rain water harvesting systems all over India, and concretely the water tanks in South India, are good examples of traditional adaptations to seasonal water scarcity. Paradoxically, some water policies can also generate even a worse and more serious water scarcity beyond that of droughts, increasing the vulnerability of societies, mainly in the so‐called Southern countries.

1 Shiva, V., 2002 2 Palanisami, K., 2001 3 A country is said to experience water stress when annual water supplies drop below 1,700 cubic metres per person. When supplies drop below 1,000 cubic metres per person per year, the country faces water scarcity for all or part of the year. These concepts were developed by Swedish hydrologist Malin Falkenmark to gauge current and future water needs and to measure scarcity. 4 Shiva, V., 2002

‐ 5 ‐


Hence, water scarcity is constructed, not only by physical factors, but also by social, political and structural factors. So, it is not explained only for the population growth and density; it is also generated by the wastage, pollution and privatisation of water. The property rights of natural resources, concretely water rights, an issue widely discussed by many authors, are important to consider. Water scarcity may be generated as well by transference of the property rights from the state or from the commons to the private companies.

Pollution is another important form of water degradation and water scarcity generation, especially since Green Revolution in the 70s, due to the increment in consumption of pesticides and fertilizers. The increasing number of urban agglomerations and industrialization, in prejudice to the implementation of water treatment systems, has also contributed to the present status. The result is that, nowadays, about 70% of the Indian rivers are polluted by industrial waste . 5

Economic growth and industrial revolution, joined with population growth, have been responsible for human water demand. The water consumption has increased in 9 times in the XX century6. The proportion of use has been always almost the same; the water has been used in major quantity for irrigation than for the other industrial and domestic uses. Agriculture is, then, responsible of the 69% of global water use, industry about 21%, urban supply about 6%, and evaporation from dams 4%7. Hence, it is highly interesting to study the use of water for agriculture (irrigation) as major water consumption economical activity, especially in semi‐arid tropics like Tamil Nadu, South India where the traditional water tanks have been functioning for centuries. This ancient technology is still working, but it is in a situation of decay, being some of them in very bad conditions or completely lost, and non‐prioritized by the current water policies, will be explained in this text.

It has been said that water policies can solve or generate water scarcity depending on the approach of the managers and depending on the socio‐political and economical context of watershed.

The water management is based sometimes in large dams’ construction. The first big hydraulic project of XX century was implemented by the British East India Company affecting the Indus, one of the biggest rivers of the world, in the Punjab state, “the land of the five rivers”8. The Government of India spent 1500 millions of dollars between 1951 and 1980 to construct large and medium reservoirs, and nowadays the 40% of dam construction projects in the world are located in India, where at present time there are 4000 dams9. Forest areas have been flooded and some wild animals have been threatened. The people displaced by dam projects are estimated between 40 and 80 millions around the world, being between 16 and 38 millions in India10. Malaria has been resurgent in the last decade or so, especially in the command areas of irrigation

5 Ashock, S., 1998 6 McNeill, J.R., 2004 7 Ashock, S., 1998 8 McNeill, J.R. 2004 9 Shiva, V., 2002 10 Shiva, V., 2002

‐ 6 ‐


projects and around reservoirs11. This kind of environmental and social externalities of dams finally generates ecological distributive conflicts between social movements and the Central Government (like Narmada Bachao Andolan, a social movement against Narmada hydraulic project, Tehri dam in upstream Ganges, Pong and Bakhra dams in Himachal Pradesh, Kabini in Karnataka and so on), and between the state governments (t the Cauvery dispute between Karnataka and Tamil Nadu, and the Krishna river transfer are examples). Other large project that Government in India is starting to implement is the Interlinking of the Rivers, a very controversial one.

The Green revolution had a strong influence on Indian policies of subsidies, which started in 1970, like the subsidy to power supply for groundwater extraction used in agriculture. This, as well as the expansion of high water consumption crops such as rice, bananas and sugarcane, is causes of anthropogenic water scarcity.

Wittfogel emphasized the link between political structures and water supply. His notion of Oriental Despotism does not apply to local water harvesting in Tamil Nadu, around temples more than state bureaucracies.

How does water harvesting in Tamil Nadu fit into the division of water policies currently made? One group of policies are those considering water as merchandise that can be privatised and centralised to trade with it (and to get capital gains). This kind of water’s management also believes in the market solutions for social water conflicts and for environmental impacts.

The other group of policies is those ones considering the water as a basic public good and the water management oriented to ensure the livelihood and welfare of the people. From this framework emerges the Water Democracy promoted by Vandana Shiva, who is considering water as a basic right and as common good whose access and consumption has to be ensured for all the population. This theory is also defending the decentralised management of water. From these ideas arises the “Nueva Cultura del Agua” in Spain, which recognizes the social and ecological functions of water bodies like rivers. The management from this paradigm is centred in the demand, not in the supply like the traditional water management.

Taking into account both the ecological and social functions of water, it is important to mention also the ecosystem management approach, which “is widely proposed in the popular and professional literature as the modern and preferred way of managing natural resources and ecosystems12and also intends to sustain the integrity of the ecosystem ”. 13

Why water tanks? The water tanks are water harvesting systems based on local and decentralised management, and they are devices built to face the water scarcity caused by the monsoon pattern of rain, which concentrates all the rainfall in just two or three months per year. Small earthen barrages constructed by villagers called bunds retain the water

11 Ashock, S., 1998 12 Lackey, R. 1998 13 Brunner, R.D. and Clark, T.W. , 1997

‐ 7 ‐


of the rainy season falling from the slopes and store it to ensure the irrigation agriculture during the rest of the year. These local small water reservoirs are located in most of villages in South India, at the present time there are about 1.2 to 1.5 million tanks still in use, and they sustain the everyday life in 660,000 villages in India14. The main function of water tanks is irrigation, however, as it will be explained along the text, water tanks constitute human‐made ecosystem with other important uses, resources and functions. In the figure 1 it is showed a first schematic representation of the water tanks as ecosystems related with different functions, uses, resources and stakeholders. The ecosystem is in this territory distinguished by the central presence of the water tank, and we consider the rest of elements surrounding this main element. Among the functions and uses there are included the economic functions (agriculture, livestock uses, fishing, etc.), ecological functions (groundwater recharge, avoiding soil erosion, preventing floods, etc.) and the socio‐cultural functions (assuring livelihood, domestic uses, leisure area, temple festivals, etc.). In fact, there is overlapping among such categories of functions – growing rice is both for subsistence and the market, preventing soil erosion is both ecological and economic, and so on.

We can enumerate the classic different purposes of water for agriculture, livestock uses, fish and duck rearing, domestic uses and drinking water, and the natural resources directly associated with the tank ecosystem: fish, grass, trees, soil (bricks manufacturing with clay), and silt (used as manure in the lands). It proves then that water tanks are not only water deposits; they have a more important role beyond the water reservoir.

This multiple‐uses and multifunction perspective needs to be analysed in a multidisciplinary approach, and with an integral perspective of the whole ecosystem. This informs the present study. The high number of stakeholders involved in the management of the water tank makes necessary to understand the multiple evaluation languages deployed in water tank ecosystem management.

Functions

Stakeholders

Uses

Resources

Water TankEcosystem

Figure 1. Schematic representation of the tank ecosystem with functions, resources, uses and stakeholders.

Source: own elaboration.

14 Pandey, D. N., 2000

‐ 8 ‐


Theoretical framework The theoretical framework of this study is focused on the sustainability concept versus the sustainable development. First of all it is important to differentiate between weak sustainability and strong sustainability. The first paradigm considers the natural patrimonial functions (natural capital) as potentially replaceable by manufactured capital. This vision of sustainability considers that valuations of the ecosystems can be done reducing all the values into monetary ones, with a strong comparability of values, and comes from neoclassical economics. The second paradigm considers the natural patrimonial functions irreplaceable and with diversity of functions that have to be studied with multicriterial point of view and physical indicators of (un)sustainability. It is based on weak comparability of values that means the impossibility of reducing the several units having different values into a single unit like the monetary price.

Ecological economics as a new interdisciplinary framework based on strong sustainability, 15 and it is our main theoretical approach, together with Ethnoecology, which tries to describe how agrarian or hunting‐gathering societies are perceiving and transforming and adapting to the environment. In the table 1 we can see the list of the sciences which will be used to understand the water tank ecosystem.

Sciences in dialogue

Hydrogeology Ecological economics

Hydrology Sociology

Geology Political ecology

Edaphology Ethno‐ecology

Botany Indology

Ecology Agronomy

Geography Anthropology

Table 1. List of sciences in dialogue . Source: own elaboration.

The sustainable development, expressed at the first time in the Bruntland Report in 1987, has come to mean the combination of economic growth and ecological sustainability. This is criticised by some authors who define the sustainability beyond the ecological and economic performance, and they remark that “sustainability must consider cultural processes of signification, biological processes of ecosystem functioning, and technoeconomic processes of resource utilization. Said differently, sustainability cannot be conceived in terms of patches or singular activities, or only on economic grounds. It must respond to the integral and multidimensional character of the practices of effective appropriation of ecosystems. The region‐territory thus can be said to articulate the life project of the communities with the political project of the

15 Martínez‐Alier, J.M. 2000

‐ 9 ‐


social movement. In sum, the political strategy of the region‐territory is essential to strengthen specific territories in their cultural, economic, and ecological dimensions”16. This vision links sustainability to empowerment, self‐reliance and ethno‐development of the people.

Being then the sustainability a concept conceived around the human development, it is important to underline the need of an integral development of the society, relating it with the water tank services, a system which covers several different needs. This is mentioned in the Human Scale Development of Manfred‐Maxneef, based on nine fundamental needs according to axiological categories (subsistence, protection, affect, intellect, participation, leisure, creation, identity, freedom) due to the water tanks diversity of functions.

Other important concept of the theoretical approach of this study is the post‐normal science17, a new paradigm of science that appears when the number of stakeholders is high and has different social values and different views of the scientific reality. In this context the epistemological and ethic uncertainty are also high. In this cases the phenomenon of “extended peer review” appears, this can be used in order to find a solution of environmental problems through recognizing the plurality of legitimate perspectives.

This research is based in these approaches, and it pretends to reach a higher level of sustainability in the management of water tank ecosystems (although it is not a study evaluating sustainability of an ecosystem). Specifically for this case, the authors consider the way to sustainability divided in three steps (see figure 2). The first step is the perception of the society about their environment, showing if the local population has an ecosystemic vision or not. The second step is to see if the management reflects the integral perception of the ecosystem and considers (in a participatory and democratic way) all the uses, resources, functions and stakeholders. If there is an integral management of the ecosystem, then we will be able to arrive to the last step, a higher sustainability of the ecosystem considering also the fulfilment of the needs of human development.

Ecosystem perception

Integral management

Sustainability of the ecosystem

Figure 2. Steps to reach the sustainability of the ecosystem

The main research questions, hypothesis, goals and objectives are explained in the following points.

16 Escobar, A., 1998 17 Funtowicz and Ravetz, 2000

‐ 10 ‐


Main Research question “Does the current management of tanks consider all the resources, uses, functions and stakeholders of the water tank ecosystem? Does the management respond to such ecosystem perspective, and is this holistic, integrated awareness shared by (sections of) the local population? ”

Hypotheses

⋅ The water tank is interlinked with several ecological and social elements forming an ecosystem, so it is needed an integrated management of the entire ecosystem in order to reach a better sustainability.

⋅ The management of the tank reflects the perception of the society about the ecosystem. However, society is not uniform. Different groups (gender / occupation / caste) will have different perception or awareness that water tanks are interlinked with several ecological and social elements forming an ecosystem.

⋅ Participation in the management of tank water depends not so much on perception and knowledge about agriculture and the environment, but on social position (which determine “participatory exclusions” 18 of women /Dalits/Landless).

⋅ Are institutions above the village level (watershed institutions, NGO, State initiatives) increasingly influential on tank maintenance (or, on the contrary, does the reinforcement of Panchayat raj tend to eliminate outside influence?).

Goals The goals of this project, then, are divided in two groups: the first one is focused in demonstrating that we should consider the water tanks as ecosystems, and the second group discusses how the social perception of the tank ecosystem is related with the management, and such perceptions depend on social structures and evolving institutions.

The following chapters 2 and 3 are focused on the description of the water tank ecosystem with the multiple uses, resources and functions perspective and describe how the current management of the tanks is.

The chapters 4 and 5 are focused in the methodology and the description of the study cases (it is important to analyze the whole background of the villages to be able to speak about their ecosystem and their perception), and finally, in the chapters 6 and 7 we analyzed results to get conclusions about the research questions and hypotheses that have been listed above.

18 Agarwal, B. 2001

‐ 11 ‐

2

Description of water tanks as human-made ecosystems

In this chapter we will explain a general description of the water tanks that surely many of the readers already know, but we will also describe them from an integral point of view. We will explain then our thesis of water tanks understood as full human‐made ecosystem by describing the environment related to the tanks, and the significance of tanks for the environment, and finally we will expose some relations of all the resources, functions and uses that support the idea of water tank as ecosystem.

Small water storage works are generally called “tanks” in South India, and “reservoirs” are, by contrast, those exceptionally big in size19. Depending on the state, they have different names in different languages. For example, in Tamil Nadu, they are commonly called “eri”, what means lake. Indeed, the majority of tanks in South India are broad deposits of water with small depth (maximum 6 meters), so they really look like a pond or lake. Their shapes differ, but the enbankment is in general like a crescent of moon. Moreover, very few of them have water through the year, most of them being with water from 2 to 6 months . 20

Tank is a water harvesting system, transferring water over the surface to the command area. The big majority of tanks in South India are irrigation tanks, apart of recharging at the same time groundwater through percolation process (besides the rest of their functions and uses). Irrigation tanks are the type of tanks object of our study, and from now onwards, we will talk about them simply like “tanks”.

In the following page it is shown a general scheme (scheme 1) of a prototypical water tank ecosystem. It has been necessary to create a new illustration to include in just one scheme the general information of the situation of all the physical elements in the ecosystem, the way of water, some ecological processes and the main natural resources. This picture also helps to create a general idea about how is a water tank and the associated items to all the readers who are not familiarized with them. To show the different uses and functions of the ecosystem see figure 4 in page 28, and to describe the stakeholders and the management, see figure 5 in page 36.

19 Shanmugham, C.R and Kanagavalli, J, 2005 20 Etymology: the word ʺtankʺ originally meant ʺartificial lakeʺ and came from India, perhaps via Portuguese tanque. It may have some connection with some Indian language words similar to ʺtakʺ or ʺtankʺ and meaning ʺreservoir for waterʺ or the Arabic verb istanqa`a = ʺit [i.e. some liquid] collected and became stagnantʺ.

‐ 12 ‐


Water tanks technology and way of water In the following lines, it will be described the classic characteristics of tanks and all the elements forming the system as a technological device of rain water harvesting system.

Officially, tanks are classified as system or non‐system. Tanks generally capture rainwater runoff from their catchment areas, but system tanks are also supplied from major storage canal irrigation systems or from perennial rivers, so the water income in those tanks is greater, more constant, and longer available during the dry season. The non‐system tanks or rain‐fed tanks are the majority of tanks in South India21. It is important not to confuse the so‐called “system tanks” with the tanks linked with other tanks by canals. The connection between tanks forming chains or nets is called cascade connection22 (see figure 3 showing a net of tanks in Tamil Nadu), and these tanks are not necessarily system tanks. Most of tanks are linked with other tanks in cascade connection, so that the surplus water from one tank goes downstream to the following tank and so on, through the surplus weirs (kalunku) located in one side of the tank, at the end of the embankment. The height of the surplus weirs determines the storage capacity of tanks, and ensures the discharge of surplus flood waters, as a safety valve against dangerous breach of the tank bund in heavy rain periods. In many cases is possible to change the height of the surplus weir through installing or removing planks, or if they are destroyed, using mud, brush wood, sand sacks or trunks, to control the level of water and the amount of stored water and the surplus water going out from the tank. Sometimes there are conflicts due to the increment of height of the surplus weirs at the beginning of the season, because villagers from downstream tanks demand surplus water, or there may be farmers with upper lands whose crops risk being submerged if the tank is overfilled.

Water flows into these tanks from the surface run‐off of the catchment area of the adjacent land (cultivated or uncultivated), from supply channels (odai or kolakkal) linked to seasonal streams and rivers, or from the overflow of upstream tanks.

Water enters from different directions to the tank bed, also called water‐spread area, and it is impounded behind an embankment formed by the bund (karai). As the tank fills, water extends behind and along the bund, and across the tank bed (purompokku). The incoming water to the tank also brings a lot of organic matter collected from the catchment area, and all this material accumulates on the water spread area forming a layer of silt, mostly in the deeper part of the tank bed, which is near the embankment. Villagers extract the silt and soil from the tank for different purposes, deepening the base of the embankment and creating a storage of water that can be used for domestic needs. The deeper layers of the tank bed, with dense and gritty material are used to strength and make thicker the bund (but not to make it higher ). 23

21 Mosse, D., 2003 22 Shanmugham, C.R and Kanagavalli, J, 2005 23 The maximum height of the bund is calculated in order to store a specific amount of water occupying a specific water‐spread area, so that it doesn’t submerge the upperstream lands when the tank is completely full. The maximum height considers a security distance to prevent water from overtopping the bund in exceptional conditions, when the full tank level is over because the inflow into the tank is more than the

‐ 13 ‐


Figure 2. Sarugani minor basin, Tamil Nadu. Example of territory covered by a net of water tanks in

cascade connection. It can be appreciated some system tanks connected to rivers and some non‐system tanks. Source: adapted from Public Works Department.

Encroachment on the tank bed occurs nowadays due to pressure on land, meaning that farmers having fields in the foreshore areas encroach some part of the upper lands of the tank bed (which is a common land belonging to the village) for agricultural purpose. This encroachment is allowed and organized in some tanks in summer season, when the tank is empty, so that it is possible to exploit this fertile land by landless people, or by landowner farmers paying a fee to the village . In other tanks, 24

outflow through the surplus weir. This temporary level of accumulated water is called maximum water level of the tank. 24 Shanmugham, C.R and Kanagavalli, J, 2005

‐ 14 ‐


encroachment is committed illegally by landowners with adjacent lands to the tank bed, without permission or consensus of the rest of the village. In this case, most of times nobody takes action to stop the illegal encroachment, although is punished with a fine of Rs. 20025 (see chapter 3), because normally the land encroached is very little and when the tank fills this encroached land submerge, so for the village perception it doesn’t represent a major problem. However, recently villagers, farmers associations and tank users associations are taking into account more seriously the problem of encroachment.

Water from the tank is released to the irrigation channels through a sluice (madagu or matai) situated on the bund, and (it is supposed to) be opened and closed with regulation according to the needs of irrigation and availability of water. Often operated by specialists (tote) assigned by the traditional institution, they release water under gravity flow into the irrigation channels, from which water is fed into the entrances of individual fields through small openings, called vay matai (mouth sluice). The sill level of sluices has an important bearing on the distribution of water from the tank. Higher sill level may leave a greater quantity of water from the tank under the sluice level, without being able to draw by gravity through the sluice intake, so at least one sluice’s intake (in case the tank has more than one sluice) is commonly placed in the deepest point of the tank. The water stored between the sill level of the sluice and the deep bed level is known as dead storage. Sometimes, they have to pump the water from the dead storage to the fields if the farmers want to continue using the surface water from the tank. It is useful to have an adequate dead storage also for additional functions that we will explain later.

Tanks can vary a lot in the water storage capacity, and the area irrigated, also known as the command area, ayacut or nanjai. Punjai is by contrast, the cultivated land not irrigated by the water coming from the tank, the dry land or land irrigated from other sources like groundwater. Tank ayacut oscillate from under two acres to over 12000 acres. But the majority of tanks in South India are small; for example, the average tank in Tamil Nadu has an ayacut of about 48 acres (20 ha). As a general rule, small tanks irrigate an area of paddy (rice) equal to their own water spread area, and the ratio of irrigated land to water spread area increases with tank size. Anyway, many factors are affecting this conventional measure of equating the tank area to ayacut, like the water use, diversification of cropping, extension of tank commands beyond their official limits, as well as encroachment of land within the tank bed . 26

The surface water coming from the tank is distributed to the different lands of the ayacut through the irrigation canals. If a canal is required from the existing canal to a private land, the farmers build their own irrigation canals independently, simply digging lines on the land. For the end‐tailed lands of the ayacut, water from the tank doesn’t arrive in the same proportion that those ones closer to the sluice, because canals have water losses due to infiltration, and upstream farmers use water for themselves leaving less water in the canal, so generally the best lands for cultivation are those closest to the sluice. The priority for the upstream farmers is the common rule

25 Prabhakar, P. I. 2007 26 Mosse D., 2003

‐ 15 ‐


for the water distribution. Farmers conduct the water through different canals or they lock the access of water to their lands by putting a pile of earth that stops the water.

Finally, the field drains are channels provided to drain the excess runoff from rainfall and irrigation water from the field, to avoid damage to the standing crops due to stagnation of water.

Groundwater All along the way of water described before it is also taking place the recharge of groundwater through infiltration process. Infiltration occurs wherever there are permeable soils, and there is water on the surface, from rain, to irrigated fields, for example. But the main groundwater recharge points are located in areas where there is more surface water available, like water tanks and rivers. Tanks are in general active groundwater recharge mechanisms, and there is a lot of infrastructure associated to the tank system to exploit all this groundwater. Generally there is a conjunctive use between the surface water from the tank and the groundwater from other water bodies to irrigate the crops and for other uses. However, the proportion of use of water from the tank and groundwater can change due to several factors. Normally the use of groundwater is greater if it is an alluvial zone rather than a rocky one. Generally, If there is more water availability in the tank (during and just after the rainy season) the groundwater use will decrease.

Other water bodies in the tank ecosystem As well as larger irrigation tanks, the local water harvesting system belonging to the tank ecosystem involves excavation of some smaller deeper ponds, and also the perforation of many wells. Opposite to tanks, these works are filled in general by groundwater, although many ponds can be also connected through a canal to the tank.

Kulams are ponds for multiple purposes, like irrigation or domestic uses. They are excavated in the land where the groundwater table is very near to the surface, in order to create a surface water reservoir easily (speech of villagers). Kulams can have many different sizes, shapes, depths and they can be made with different construction materials. From our field observations, when kulams are linked with canals to the tank, they can be used also as a supplementary water deposit to recharge the tank in case of water scarcity, or they can receive the surplus water from the tank in case of excess of water for later use. Kulams can be also much related to temples all around South India, and some of them are considered sacred places.

Oodanis are kulams used specifically for drinking purpose, so normally there is a greater control of the uses made in these ponds, in order to avoid pollution of the water. There are others types of ponds with different names depending on the purpose and the region where is located. For example, kuttais are very small ponds of waste water, very common many years ago and also used as dumps.

Wells

The use and number of wells in the tank ecosystem had increased enormously (see graphic 1) during the last 25 years, due to new facilities in technology of perforation and pumping. In 1998, groundwater from wells represented 60 % of the total water

‐ 16 ‐


used for irrigation in Tamil Nadu. The trend is to augment the area irrigated by wells in detriment of the area irrigated by tanks, and also to expand the total area irrigated in Tamil Nadu. Farmers have to dig deeper since 25 years ago, because the groundwater level has decreased in general.

Wells can be the traditional open ones (round or square shaped), or the modern tube wells or “borewells”, very deep and thin, which need to be perforated by special machinery.

0

200

400

600

800

1000

1200

1400

1600

1950 1960 1970 1980 1990

Year

Irrig

ated

sur

face

(100

0 ha

)

welltank

Graphic 1. Evolution of irrigated lands by tanks and wells in Tamil Nadu.

Source: own elaboration based on data from Cesselin, F., 2001.

Ecology of water tanks ecosystems This is a general description of the ecological aspects of water tank ecosystems, necessary to understand deeply how is the environment in these ecosystems and the ecological significance, precesses and possible problems, so that it will be possible to relate in the following chapters of this document the perception of the local population about tank ecosystems.

The tank ecosystem includes different physical elements related with its technology and it is composed by different ecological compartments with multiple relations among them. These multiple ecological relations make the tank ecosystem a human‐made versatile device that carries out all the functions and uses later explained.

In the following pages will be described the ecological relations and the environmental factors related to the tank, and the main ecological process inside and among the different compartments. All these relations will be explained using some thematic blocks as hydrology, geology, hydrogeology, fauna, flora, geomorphology, etc. The social and economical human activities are considered as well part and process of the ecosystem, with very important roles.

The environmental compartments considered in the explanation are the hydrosphere, the lithosphere, the atmosphere, the pedosphere and the biosphere (or biota). It is obvious that many processes in tank ecosystems are related with water in the hydrosphere, as a water harvesting system. Also the lithosphere is much related with this ecosystem, because it is held on the substrate of the earth, and the characteristics

‐ 17 ‐


depend completely on the topography of the terrain and the properties of the lithology. The atmosphere is affecting the ecosystem directly, because water in the tanks depends mostly on the weather and the water particles in the air forming the clouds, and the water tank ecosystem also influence the air in the surroundings, changing the temperature, the humidity, and the air fluxes. The biota is a very interesting compartment to analyze in the tanks ecosystems, because it has its own biodiversity, a wide mixture of human introduced plants and animals with wild flora and fauna, all living together. And finally, the pedosphere, existing at the interface of the lithosphere, atmosphere, hydrosphere and biosphere. The soil formation processes are very active in the tank ecosystem, with the erosion, sedimentation on the tank bed, and the use of silts on the land.

Climate The atmosphere dynamics and meteorology variability are very important to consider in the semi‐arid tropic area of South of India. The main characteristics of the climate in this region are very heavy rains concentrated during the monsoon seasons, divided in two periods: the South‐west monsoon, mainly from June to September, and the North‐east monsoon, mainly from October to December, and high temperatures during the rest of the year without practically any precipitation. The monsoons can vary in dates and in intensity and quantity of rain among the years and between regions. For example, in Tamil Nadu, South‐west monsoon is not really important compared to the North‐east one, which accounts for almost two thirds of the total annual precipitation, many years reaching 1000 mm (varying with the region). In the Graphic 2 we can see the total annual rainfall in Tamil Nadu during 34 years, and the contribution given by the two monsoons. We can notice in this graphic that the contribution of the rest of the rainfall outside the monsoon periods to the total annual rainfall is really poor. In this context, the water tanks appear as water harvesting systems to decrease the impacts of droughts, storing water to use it the rest of the year and avoid the floods allowing then, to make longer the agricultural season. However, the technology of tanks generate besides, a complex ecosystem beyond the irrigation function, as we will explain later.

‐ 18 ‐


Rainfall in Tamil Nadu

0

200

400

600

800

1000

1200

1400

1960

1962

1964

1966

1968

1970

1972

1974

1976

1978

1980

1982

1984

1986

1988

1990

1992

Year

Soth-west monsoon rain (mm) North-east monsoon rain (mm)Total annual rainfall (mm) North-east+South-west rain

Graphic 2. Source: own elaboration based in data from Palanisami, K. 2000.

In this sense, one of the main advantages is the socio‐ecological resilience of the water tank ecosystem in case of disturbance, given the possibility of long periods of drought and the occasional episodes of extreme heavy rains. The water tanks permits to reduce these disturbances protecting the whole ecosystem, in order to decrease also the risk of affectation to the population, which is very vulnerable generally in this territory due to their economic poverty.

Geomorphology and Edaphology To lead the water to the supply channels and from the supply channels to the tank, the topographic and geomorphologic factors like the slope and the watershed morphology take importance, to determine the direction and diversion of water.

The erosion caused by the rain water changes the landscape and the geomorphology. The rain fall erodes the soil in the catchment area of the tank in different stages: first with the precipitation splash erosion and after with the run‐off erosion (sheet, inter‐rill and rill erosion). When the soil is in good condition and non‐affected by soil crusts, the infiltration is good and the water is transported also by percolation, sometimes causing pipping erosion. In the interaction between the water and the soil, the water dissolves nutrients and salts (inorganic matter) transporting them with the organic matter of the first layer of the soil. In the supply channels the hydrodynamics and the erosion‐deposition processes are very important. The rill erosion can be very high but the sedimentation of rocks, sand, lime and clay transported by the water can be also important depending on the geomorphology. For this reason, the villagers maintain these canals with desiltation activities and planting trees along the odai course.

The water that falls down along the supply channels is stopped by the bund of the tank, so the silt, rocks, sand, lime, clay, organic matter, etc. are deposited in a sedimentation and precipitation process in the tank bed. The bund has as well the ecological function of prevention of floods in the rainy season. To avoid the erosion of the bund and to maintain it in good conditions, it is common to strengthen it planting

‐ 19 ‐


trees that have the main function to retain the soil with the roots. In some villages it is also common to strength and rise the height of the bund with soil from the watershed, and sometimes with cement structures. The water diversion is eroding as well the irrigation canals, and there is a solution of salts and transportation of organic matter and silt along these canals to the cultivated lands. It is very important to manage the dynamic between erosion and deposition, maintaining them in proper conditions by the farmers and agricultural labourers, who must clean and desiltate these canals. It is a good practice to grow some plants in the borders of the irrigation canals to maintain the shape of canals and to avoid the erosion by fixing the soil.

The soil is the compartment in which all other compartments meet: the hydrosphere, the lithosphere, the biosphere and the atmosphere. The soil is also the most important resource of the agriculture activity. This non‐renovable natural resource is object of several ecological processes which have to be well‐managed by the farmers to preserve the qualities of the soil.

In the case of evaporation process, when the soil is saline or basic and it is irrigated with a lack of drainage, the salts can be transported to the surface of the lands due to the water gradient of evaporation and evapotranspiration, and they can precipitate in the first layer of the soil causing salinization. In the dry season, the cultivated soils are also affected by the soil crusts affecting the infiltration. Bad agricultural practices can compact the soil making difficult the drainage of water and reducing the macroporosity of the soil, and the air cannot circulate properly through the soil and it is not good for the roots of the crops. The organic manure is a god solution to avoid this problem because it promotes the infiltration.

When the cattle are rearing in the tank their dungs are mixed with the soil and the silt stored in the tank bed. It can be used later by the farmers to fertilize their lands. In case that nobody takes the silt, the silt is enriched anyway of nutrients for the next rainy season, permitting the growth of phytoplankton the next year when the tank is full of water again. The cattle generate also one problem in the cultivated soil when they graze in the lands after the harvest of the crops, because they cause soil compactation. On the other hand, one benefit of grazing the cattle in the cultivated lands is that the farmers and agricultural labourers will be able to remove the rests of plants easily when they start the new crop season and they plow the lands.

In summer season take place the maintaining activity called desiltation. The desiltation removes silt and sometimes soil from the tank bed. It is used to increase the water storage capacity of the tank and to strengthen the bund.

Hydrogeology It is important to underline here the relation between the soil and the water. The soil is a filter for the water, and for this reason the drinking water used by villagers comes from wells.

The relation between the hydrosphere, the lithosphere and the pedosphere in the hydrogeologic aspects explains the wells depletion problems related with the overexploitation of groundwater due to the agricultural activity. The porosity of soil and stone determines the permeability, which is very important for the availability of

‐ 20 ‐


water. In highly consolidated rocks zones the water is stored in the fractures of rocks and it occupies only 1 % of the rock volume. Also, the hardness of the stone determines in the economic poorest regions the possibility of drilling a well.

The recharge of the aquifers occurs in the lands by the infiltration through the soil of the rain water on the surface to the groundwater, but the main recharging process in the tank ecosystem is located in the water‐spread area of the tank. The recharge of the groundwater is one of the main functions of the dead‐storage, the water below the level of the sluice. The groundwater is used and extracted from the open wells, the borewells and the kulams. The substantial rate of recharge of groundwater inside the tank explain also why in most of villages the overhead tanks of drinking water is connected to the well which is located inside the eri next to the bund, or outside but very close to the bund.

The wells (open and borewells) are considered part of the tank ecosystem in hydrologic and hydrogeologic aspects, because they are linked directly with the tank surface water, and with one of the main functions of tanks, the irrigation. The wells have an opposite role than the tank‐bed in the hydrogeologic dynamics. The tank‐bed and the field itself are the recharging area, and the wells are the discharge device. The recharge process is done by the percolation and underground flux, and with lesser importance, by the direct rain and the run‐off. The discharge process is through pumps, with electric pump or fuel pump (kerosene in many cases). It is important to underline that the energy consumption of the pumping activity means in environmental impact, due to the impacts related with the combustion of fossil fuels to get the energy (the electric power supply comes from coal thermal power stations in this part of India) and the controversial impacts of nuclear stations (one located near Mamalipuram). The areas where there is more groundwater consumption are the alluvial zones, where there is much more water available and it is easier to make wells, than in rocky zone. The overexploitation of groundwater affects the quantity of water available in the future. The quality of water also can be affected when the direction and magnitude of the hydric fluxe is changed and the water from different aquifers (polluted and non‐polluted, salinizated and non‐salinizated) is mixed.

Hydrology During the main monsoon (Northeast) rainfall is concentrated into a few days or hours, and it accounts for nearly two thirds of the annual precipitation. Torrential downpours (as much as 400 mm in 24 hours) and heavy run‐off fill numerous rivers and streams which flood into the tanks.

The water‐spread area of the tank is affected by the evaporation process due to the winds and high temperatures, and also by evapotranspiration process through the aquatic plants. The water stored in the tank also is useful for the atemperation of the climate, making “cool air” and reducing the high changes of temperatures in the countryside areas without the influence of sea. In the summer season the water‐spread area of the tank ecosystem is reduced in a considerable rate progressively, due to the consumption of the water for irrigation purpose. The remaining death storage also decreases, due to the percolation, evaporation and evapotranspiration, and the tank may become completely dry. The cattle can drink the water of the death‐storage, and it

‐ 21 ‐


is ecologically very important to have some water remaining during the year, so that the fish, other aquatic animals and their eggs can survive to the next rainy season.

The evapotranspiration from the crops and the direct evaporation are important in the water loss of the cultivated soil. The infiltration is also important in the loss of surface water, but it is at the same time recharging the groundwater, what can be used again (using more energy to pump it up). The infiltration process in the irrigation canals is also other way which makes the water go to the aquifer. It becomes a problem for the end‐tailed farmers (the farmers with lands very far from the sluice), who don’t receive the same quantity of water, and several times the water doesn’t reach at all these lands. Some villages have started to construct canals made of cement for the main irrigation canals (most of them constructed by NGOs), so that the water reaches to the end‐tailed lands without losses due to infiltration. In the case of seepage, the water transports the pesticides and fertilizers to the aquifer polluting the groundwater.

Biota The specific climate in the South of India, with water scarcity most part of the year, affects the conservation of the water resources, like the water stored in the tank, and make necessary the environmental factors adaptation of the flora and fauna in the tank, like the adaptation of plants what can survive with water scarcity most part of the year, but also can survive when the tank is full of water and the land is flooded.

Flora

The tank‐bed is an open space in which trees like karuvella maram grow naturally. The trees and plants of the bund and the tank bed give some resources to the population that we will explain later, but they also have other ecological functions as primary producers of the ecosystem. The vegetation of the bund constitutes also the habitat for the fauna that live surrounding the water tank reservoir, for example as a nesting place for birds. The leaves, fruits and branches of the trees and plants fall to the soil and are dragged by the water flows to the water tank. Their decomposition contributes with nutrients and organic matter to the formation of fertile silt on the tank bed, and changes the water quality of the surface water of the tank, increasing the eutrophycation. The evapotranspiration process from wild trees and plants is significant and it affects the relative humidity of the air, making, like villagers explain the “cool atmosphere”, refreshing the atmosphere of the village.

The water in the tanks decreases every year leaving a very extensive dry land spreaded all over the tank bed. If the soil is not heavy affected by soil crusts formation in the clay drainage, it is possible the proper growth of plants, mainly the fast‐growing plants like graminies like Vetiver or Saccharum sponteneum. They become a resource for the villagers as a building raw material for the construction of roofs, which it is auctioned as it is going to be explained in the following chapters of this project. In the summer season is the moment when, with a proper regulation, the cattle goes to graze the grass inside the tank. The plants growing on the irrigation canals are also used by the cattle for grazing.

‐ 22 ‐


Benthos

The benthos community is formed mainly by the algae, the aquatic plants, the arthropods (crustaceous like crabs and insects in the larva stadium), and molluscs. The silt of the tank bed is also used for the fish and amphibian as a place to deposit the eggs. The pelage community is formed by zooplankton, fish, amphibian and reptile (for example frogs, lizards and snakes).

Environmental problems related to the water tanks ecosystems Can be speak about the general impacts of tanks? Definitely, water tanks have changed completely the landscape, compared to the potential natural one if there was no influence of human activities in the area. Can we call then “impact” to this drastic change of the environment? Water tanks ecosystems were formed and have been developing from many centuries ago, or even millenniums. Now we must speak about real human‐made full ecosystems, and we cannot say that the existence itself of these ecosystems means an impact to the environment (in the way that is affecting the ecological processes of the local and regional ecosystem), because it constitutes an ecosystem by itself.

However, we have identify some important environmental problems related to the water tank ecosystems

Wastage of water

In the case of irrigated lands, the main environmental problems to be considered are the wastage of water and the inundation of soil caused by lack of drainage. The type of crops grown in the lands like rice and sugarcane, with a high consumption of water and the current irrigation system flooding the lands with open irrigation canals are the main reasons of the wastage of water. The problem is lack of funds of the farmers to invest in the basic modern irrigation technology that saves a lot of water, the culture of the rural population that makes difficult to convince the farmers to change to new kinds of crops, and also the pressing from the national and international companies to the farmers to grow high production crops that consume a lot of water . 27

Eutrophyzation

Sometimes there is too much quantity of nutrients in the water (eutrophyzation) and the algae and aquatic plants reproduce very fast and generate anoxia conditions, because they exhaust the oxygen, causing the death of the rest of organisms. In this process the oxygen and nitrogen are transferred from the water to the atmosphere and the carbon and phosphorus are deposited in the tank bed. The excess of nutrients in the water are caused by the increment of fertilizers used in the agriculture, mainly by the artificial fertilizers contain nitrates and phosphates, but also by natural fertilizers like cattle dung.

27 Shiva, V., 2004

‐ 23 ‐


Drinking water pollution

Drinking water also has problems with pollution in the villages in many parts of South India. Due to the very limited supply hours (usually 2 hours per day) in villages, the pipping networks are often punctured by villagers to get longer supply for themselves. This results in heavy pollution of domestic water, because punctured pipes are laid in dirty stagnating water. Also the drinking water obtained from wells and handpumps is often polluted with faecal contamination, due to the lack of sanitation facilities and solid waste management, being a constant threat to human health . 28

Inorganic pollution

The soap from the washing clothes and bath activities pollute the water of the tank and the rest of the ecosystem, where these activities are done (in the wells, canals, etc.), decreasing the biological activity of the water due to its toxicity, and affecting the surface tension of the water becoming a problem for some insects. Kulams and kuttais are the most affected water bodies by pollutants like soaps and detergents because they are commonly used for washing clothes and bathing.

The inorganic rubbish from the villagers spreaded everywhere, like packets, bottles, cans, etc., is increasing very much in quantity during the last years, due to the introduction of many new products in the market using these packages, to the high density of population in rural areas, and to the lack of rubbish containers and a system of sweepings collection. This rubbish is polluting the soil, water and landscape. All this light waste decomposes extremely slowly, and it is dragged by the water and being accumulated in water storages, like tanks. There is a serious risk in the future of water tanks of becoming a rubbish dump.

Finally, it is important to say one relevant data concerning the problem of pollution related with agriculture and so on, with water tanks: India has the highest amount of pesticides stored in human tissues, and Tamil Nadu is the area with highest rate (source by NGO Auroville Water Harvest).

Groundwater problems

Groundwater extraction through wells needs to be balanced by recharge through simple technologies, such as tanks. Since tanks are neglected and remain devoid of water for most part of the year, recharge is a problem29. Depletion of ground water has serious consequences. The overexploitation causes shortages of drinking water, and also pollution when aquifers are recharged with irrigation water polluted with chemicals. Rocky zones are more vulnerable to groundwater depletion, due to the little quantity of water available in the fissures and to the hydrogeological dynamics.

The groundwater overexploitation is also related with the agriculture subside policies of the Government. As we will explain later, Government subsidies for the farmers to get electric power supply at zero cost without any economical limitations for pumping groundwater has impulsed a culture of exploitation of the aquifers “as much as

28 D’Souza. J., 2007 29 Pandey, D. N., 2000

‐ 24 ‐


possible”, in an individual and private way, without consensus or coordination with the rest of users, who are in the reality sharing a common aquifer. It is one more example of the thesis of “tragedy of the commons”.

As we explained before, pumping groundwater for irrigation purpose also means expenditure of energy. The areas where there is a great use of groundwater, instead of taking the surface water flowing by gravity, are consuming much more energy coming from fossil fuels (from direct fuel motors or indirect electric motors) and polluting the atmosphere with gases from combustion, meaning much more impact to the environment.

Consequences of badly maintenance of the tank

It is important to underline the need of a proper maintenance of the tank and the infrastructure associated, so that it is able to accomplish all the functions what is designed for, including the ecological functions. In case of bad maintenance of these systems, there is serious risk of having lots of problems in many senses related to the loss of performance of some the functions that will be explained later. It would take a lot of pages to explain one by one all the possible problems related to the decrease of performance of each function of the tank, and the reader can imagine easily all these processes when reading the point explaining the multiple functions of the tank. Some of the main examples anticipating this point are loss of irrigated area, decrease of water storage capacity, risk of breaching for the bund creating dangerous floods, shortage of drinking water, etc. The main impacts to the tank performance are30: operation and maintenance expenditure, rainfall data, tank encroachment, siltation formation, desiltation rate, density of wells, and farmer involvement in tank management.

Biodiversity of tank ecosystems Tank ecosystems are one of the most extended ecosystems in the territory of South India, and they may include many different types of habitats, like lacustrine, cereal cultivated fields, forests, tree plantations, shrublands, riparian, urban, etc. Then, biodiversity of tanks ecosystem can be potentially very high, and given the extension of these ecosystems in this part of the world, this biodiversity has become crucial for this territory. So it is extremely important to emphasize the need of a proper conservation of biodiversity in tank ecosystems, given the relevancy for the whole environmental conditions of South India. Biodiversity guarantees the necessary functional units to provide and ensures the supply of the “environmental services”. Conservation of biodiversity is also an ecological “insurance” for the future that allows the ecosystem to autoregulate itself to the proper stable environmental conditions.

Nowadays most of tank ecosystems are in serious risk of loss of biodiversity, which is caused by the current management of the ecosystem, and a non proper maintenance of the tanks.

Loss of biodiversity is very evident in tank ecosystems by looking at the water birds living in the area, which are important indicators of the health of an ecosystem. They

30 Palanisami 2001)

‐ 25 ‐


give a clue to the water quality, depth, availability of food and human disturbance. For example, in rehabilitation projects of tanks made by NGOs, most of them remove also the plants on the tank bed considered weeds, like Ipomoea. But this plant that is infesting the tank and displacing the others, and obstructing the grazing activities, shouldn’t be removed completely from tanks, because it has good ecological functions, which are evident by looking at the water birds living in the tank after rehabilitation works. Many wetland birds have adapted to this common weed at it makes very safe nesting ground. Snails, crustaceans and fish fingerlings also find refuge in these clumps, and the high resilience of Ipomoea during dry season makes a good refuge for wetland fauna all year round.

The tank ecosystems are also very important not only for the wetland birds and field birds, but as well for the migratory birds, which use the tanks from many centuries ago to as a necessary place to rest and eat during their migrations.

The case of fishes also suffers a serious problem in many of the tank ecosystems. There are a lot of native local species in tank ecosystems, but the pollution of water and the introduction of commercial varieties like carps are two of the main reason why the local biodiversity is in danger. The local species cannot compete against the high predator commercial ones, which grow very quickly and are good for fishing purpose, but they local species have other advantages. They can survive in harder conditions, when there is only a little bit of water.

The forestation and tree planting program in the “Social Forestry” programs of the Forest Department are made with a fast‐growing species that substitute and difficult the growth of the local species. The older species of plant are not replanted, so there is as well a loss of biodiversity in the case of trees in water tank ecosystems.

The desiltation may increase the biodiversity, increasing the water stored and improving the status of the ecosystem as a place for fishes, migration birds and other species. But excessive desilting can reduce the tank productivity significantly, because removing all the silt eliminates a very important component in terms of pond ecology. It forms the benthos of the tanks, which is excellent habitat for mollusc and crustaceans, which are an important food source for fish and aquatic birds. Another problem arise if the desiltation is done too deep and the clay layer is removed, because the infiltration of water increases and then there is not surface water remaining, necessary for the survival of many species.

Natural resources of tank ecosystems The resources for the human that the tank ecosystem offers are not limited to the direct use of the water stored, for purposes like agriculture, cattle and drinking water. There are also several natural resources besides the last three mentioned, what amplifies the tank ecosystem in a much richer source of resources for the human needs, increasing the value of the ecosystem from an anthropological point of view. The wide variety of other resources found in tank ecosystems also makes that many other people apart from farmers and shepherds can be beneficiaries, becoming important active stakeholders to consider in the tank ecosystems.

‐ 26 ‐


In this part we won’t explain the common agricultural resources, although some of the natural resources we will explain have been planted, supplied or maintained by humans. The main natural resources that should be explained given their importance in most of tanks ecosystems are: trees, plants, fish, grass, soil and wild animals.

Trees are a very important part of the tank ecosystem due to the environmental value of the ecological functions that they make for the ecosystem (we will explain later). Trees can be located almost everywhere in the tank ecosystem, but the main places where they are grown are in the tank’s bund, sometimes in the tank bed, in the borders of cultivation lands, in the streets of villages and, very important to mention, besides the main roads. Trees are used for their fruits, like the enormous tamarind trees commonly found besides the roads, or the palm trees located in the bund or in the village, giving coconuts or different palm nuts. The big leaves of the palm trees are also very used to construct light roofs and walls of the traditional houses in the villages. It is not allowed to remove or cut parts of the trees that are grown specially for using the fruits or leaves. There are some other trees, normally wild ones (not planted by human) like velikatam or karuvela maram, that are used for timber and firewood.. These trees are located generally on the bund or tank bed, and the villagers cut the branches that they need in that moment for firewood with sickles, normally without cutting down completely the tree. As a domestic fuel villagers also use bushes and grass.

The rest of plants including trees, bushes, grass and aquatic plants, also have many others uses. Most of them have different and very interesting medicinal properties in the leaves or sap; they are used for cooking as spices or flavours, to make oils and lubricants or liquid fuels, or to even prepare poisons.

The grass growing in most of tank beds, basically composed by Saccharum spontaneum (eruvai or thurai pul in Tamil), is occupying all the water spread area giving the characteristic landscape of the tank in the dry season. This perennial grass grows when the surface water on the tank bed is depleting after the rainy season, and leaves an open space in the remaining area. The grass growing on the tank bed is very important for the grazing activities of the village, and the quantity of livestock living in the village is often determined by the availability of grass in the tank. This long grass is also used to construct the roofs of the traditional houses in India. The weed infestation and encroachment of the tank bed is a major problem reducing the quantity of grass available in the tank ecosystem very seriously.

The fish growing in the tanks and rest of the water bodies of the tank ecosystem is an important source of aliment for the villagers, which have an extra input of proteins, fats and minerals. Fishing also represents an economical activity for the village, when they sell the products in the market. Fishes are naturally grown in the different water bodies, or they can be introduced by villagers to increase the production of that year too, depending on the availability of water. In some few tanks villagers empty almost all the tank’s water once per year, in order to catch the fishes easily, although they waste all that water. This is one example of how important can be the resource of fish for some villages.

The soil of the tank ecosystem is also a valuable natural resource for the villagers. Apart of the common exploitation of different types of soil that can occur in many

‐ 27 ‐


different places; in tank ecosystems there are special kinds of soil available, which are characteristic of the tank’s natural processes.

Silt is the most important soil that tank ecosystem provides, because it has a high value as fertilizer for agriculture. The silt is found on the tank bed, mostly in the central part where water accumulates, forming a layer of black soil very rich in organic matter and nutrients. The run‐off waters collect many different materials in its way from the catchment area to the tank, like leaves, branches, humus, etc., and they accumulate and decompose on the tank bed, creating a new layer on the land. When the silt is collected from the tank and transported and spreaded in the cultivation fields, it lasts as fertilizer giving continuously nutrients to the cultivated soil for more 3 years. There is a common belief in villages that people before could live much longer than actually because they didn’t use artificial fertilizers before for the crops (and the crops needed more time to mature), so food had much better quality before.

Other soil exploited thanks to tank ecosystems is the red clay, used for making bricks and tiles. The red clay is available in many of the tank beds due to the accumulation in stagnant water places of clay, collected from catchment areas rich in this material.

Finally, many different wild animals are living in tank ecosystems, apart from fishes and livestock. The diversity and quantity of fauna vary a lot depending on the area, and the use of villagers of these wild animals also varies depending on the village’s culture. The tank provides an aquatic ecosystem in a dry and hot area where it creates a proper habitat for many different lacustrine and aquatic animals. Birds, like ducks, herons, partridges, pigeons, etc. are one of the most important group of wild animals inhabiting the tank ecosystems, because they are haunted for meat or feathers, or villagers take the eggs, also very appreciated. Crabs, snails and shellfishes are also commonly taken from the tanks and other water bodies like kulams, and they are used for cooking or to prepare some kinds of medicine. Many other types of animals like little mammals, snakes, frogs, and lizards are living in the tank ecosystems, and they can be exploited or not by humans depending on the village.

Multiple uses and functions of the tank ecosystem In this point, it will be explained extensively a record of the different uses and functions that tank ecosystems provide in general. Besides the economical functions, we must understand that tank ecosystems are also extremely important for many social and cultural functions serving the rural population, and they are a central part of the ecology of the area, providing the necessary ecological functions for a healthy environment.

‐ 28 ‐


Ecological Functions• Water conservation• Soil conservation• Protection and sustain of the surronding area ecology• Flood control• Recharge of groundwater• Recharge of surface water of other water bodies

Socio-Cultural Functions• Ensuring livelihood• Domestic uses• Leisure area•Temple festival• Conservation of traditional knowledge and culture

Economical Functions• Development of agriculture• Insurance against low rainfall periods• Livestock uses• Fishing• Duck rearing• Building raw materials• Social Forestry• Tree crops• Auctions• Silt collection as fertilizer

• Agriculture• Livestock

• Grazing• Drinking

• Bricks• Tiles• Pottery

• Trees• Grass• Fish

• Avoid erosion• Creation of organic layer of silt

• Well• Kulam, Oorani, Kuttai, etc.

• Other water tanks• Kulams

• Drinking water• Washing• Toilet• Bathing

Water Tank Ecosystem

Functions and uses scheme

• Provision of many habitats• Conservation of biodiversity

Figure 3. Source: own elaboration.

Economical functions and uses The most evident function of the tank is the provision of the agriculture of the area, through providing water for irrigation of the crops. The existence of tanks allows the development of the agriculture all along the year, providing a continuous supply of water for irrigation during the dry seasons (also recharging the groundwater). In this territory of climate determined by monsoons and dry periods, the agriculture could not develop at all at the current production rate without this water supply.

The cattle rising is the secondary economical function originated by the tank performance, because the tank permits the uses of grazing and drinking of the cattle to produce all the derived products from the domestic animals.

Besides the production of agriculture and livestock, the tank ecosystem provides of other natural resources with great significance to the economy of the village, like fish and duck rearing. Natural growing trees, grass and other wild plants are also exploited for firewood, to make roofs (grass and palm leaves), for collection of fruits, to make liquor (from palm trees), and for medicinal plants. In general, in rural areas it is considered that all these wild products belong to the whole community of the village, so there is a system to share the benefits of the main natural resources among the entire village. For the exploitation of trees (fruits and firewood), grass growing on the tank bed and fish, there are auctions organized by villagers where one person can get the rights to exploit the resource, paying a variable quantity of money, which will be destined to a common fund of the village, and later invested for the common benefit (mostly to fund temple festivals), or shared between the members of the village. It may

‐ 29 ‐


be very complex to analyze the possible conflicts associated with the exploitation of these natural resources, because they can be intra‐communitarian (inside the village), inter‐communitarians (between villages sharing one resource), corruption cases, inequality consideration of society, etc.

In the case of trees, there is also a governmental program called “Social Forestry” and implemented by the Forest Department. They plant fast‐growing tree species inside the tank bed and they cut them after ten to twenty years for firewood. The benefits from these trees are organized in an auction at District level (so the benefits normally don’t go directly to the village where the trees where placed). It is not allowed to cut these trees by the villagers, and the ITC Act determines that people has to pay penalties in case they cut the trees before the auction takes place.

The collection of silt from the tank bed as manure for the agricultural lands is also an important economical use of the tank ecosystem, as well as a good action to maintain the tank conditions, although this practise is quickly being abandoned by farmers due to the low cost of artificial fertilizers. Other types of soil from the tank bed are also exploited as raw construction material. Red clay is commonly used to make bricks and tiles, and in some villages it is also exploited for pottery works. Especially in poor villages like “colonies” (villages of scheduled casts), it is very common to use the soil gathered in the tank as adobe to build the walls of houses and it is also used as cement to join the bricks.

Finally, there are many other minor resources that can be obtained from the tank ecosystems, like wild birds, eggs, snakes or snails. It depends on every village if these resources are also exploited or not. Normally the Scheduled Tribes and nomads are the people who get benefit in some tanks hunting birds and snakes.

Socio-cultural functions and uses We consider that one of the most important functions of tanks is to provide the basic sustain for the human population living in the area, which depends on the resources of tank ecosystem to survive, so we consider this a fundamental need of the society, besides the economical use of the commercial resources produced due to the tank performance.

One of the main water tank ecosystem’s functions is to provide the basic supply of drinking water for the population. Along the history, villagers have used water directly from ooranis to drink, and even from the eri, because they were not polluted with fertilizers and other contaminants. During the first half of the XX century, they were also using water from wells for drinking purpose, and more and more until they stop drinking from surface water bodies due to the bad quality, pollution and diseases. In the 80’s, due to a long drought, the state government installed hand pumps tube wells for drinking water in the villages. From the 90’s, government has been also installing pipping networks in the streets of villages, with water coming from overhead tanks. These last are generally supplied with water from a big well constructed inside the tank beds, to use the groundwater available from the recharge that makes the tank.

Other domestic use of the tank very extended is for washing vessels and clothes. Many women in villages use everyday the tank directly for this purpose, or they use the

‐ 30 ‐


water from irrigation canals, wells or kulams. They often use the tanks to wash the cattle to clean and refresh them, and even to wash some vehicles of the villagers.

The use of tanks to take baths by the population, mostly when tanks are full of water after the rainy season, is for hygienic reasons, but very commonly for leisure. Not only for children, which use the tank to take baths frequently, but for the whole family, the tank is used like a pool in some special days, becoming one of the few leisure spaces to take “holidays” or some rest for the rural population. When the tank bed is empty of water, there is a flat open space what is used in many cases as a playground for children or to practise sports like cricket.

Other important use, sometimes not mentioned by the local population but very common, is as a toilet space, because it can provide a hidden and private area with abundance of bushes and also water supply. Women appreciate specially the tanks to use them as toilets, because men can urine easier in many other places.

The tank has also the function to preserve the culture. The tank shows the footprint of the relation of the Tamil culture with the environment through using it as a sacred place where takes place many of the most important traditional rituals of the population. Some festivals are celebrated in the tank‐bed using it as a stage for the dramas, and sometimes the cattle is sacrificed in the tank in a sacred ritual. And for Hindu weddings, it is commonly used as a ceremony place in one part of the celebration. The tank beds are used as well to burn the death bodies during the burial ceremony. And also related with the preservation of traditional religious rituals, the potter community makes some sacred goddess statues with the soil of the tank.

Tanks have an active role in the preservation of the traditional knowledge, especially in the knowledge related with botanic and medicinal plants, because most of the wild plants are found in the tank surroundings. Normally in the villages there is one person who knows a lot about medicinal plants, becoming a special person with a deep traditional knowledge that uses to cure with the population in the village. It can be a woman or man, usually being an old person, the grandmother or grandfather of some family, and they transmit this advanced knowledge of the uses of the different parts of the plants as medicine to one person in the village for the next generation. Although this useful knowledge, actually people in villages prefer to go first to the doctor, so there is serious risk of loss of traditional knowledge.

Ecological functions The most evident ecological function of the ecosystem scheme is to preserve water, surface water and also groundwater (through percolation), after the rainy period for later use in the area. The territory will be able to do many of the basic and also complex ecological processes thanks to the availability of water supply from the tank. This provision of water is available in many cases to recharge other water bodies like other tanks or kulams, so the benefits of this function are extended to other areas. Besides this, one very important function of tanks which is not always evident is to protect against floods. The climate characteristics with very heavy rains during short periods make all the South of India a very exposed territory to this natural disasters, but water tanks protect and control from these calamities since several centuries ago, keeping closed and distributing the surplus waters during the extreme periods of heavy rains. In case

‐ 31 ‐


of poor maintenance of water tanks and canals, risk of floods is a major problem to the entire ecosystem, with serious risk to all the population and territory.

Through the controlling function of surface water flows, tanks have also an active role in the function of avoiding soil erosion, preserving the necessary layers of soil for making fertile lands. The creation of a layer of silt on the tank bed and subsequent distribution along the fields by the farmers contributes as well to the quality and creation of soil in the area.

Finally, the tanks ecosystem are fundamental to conserve the dynamics of the whole ecology of the area. As we explained before, water tanks are a central part of the territory, supporting and connecting many of the different ecological compartments as the water, biota and soil, and creating a balance between the human actions exploiting the territory and the reposition and rehabilitation of the natural resources and dynamics. The provision and creation of different habitats and the function of conservation of biodiversity increment tank ecosystems strength against ecological disturbances, generating as well socio‐ecosystemic resilience. The conservation of many different animals and plants is a very visible consequence of the ecological functions that tanks provide. The death storage of the tank has the function to keep alive fish and other aquatic animals in the tank during the rainy season. Tanks are also bird’s sanctuaries and they have the function to preserve the avifaunal biodiversity.

Past and present of water tanks

Traditional rain water harvesting system: evolution of property and management The tank system represents the earliest form of irrigation in the Indian subcontinent; some studies suggest that this kind of structures is existing at least from 5000 years ago31. These tanks have characterized the southern Tamil region since ca. 750‐1300. The tanks, interlinked through drainage flows as has been explained before, form the cascades oriented to follow the southeasterly slope of the land from the western hills to the eastern coast. At the beginning, tanks were not designed as interconnected systems, but they were developed piecemeal over the centuries . 32

Before the eighteenth century the tank systems were produced and operated within a political‐military system under the control of warrior chiefs, kings or zamindaris. The cultivators paid them to ensure their protection, which included the repair of irrigation systems, just as the deprivation of water was also a method of warfare between rival warrior domains.33 Productive resources like water tanks were treated as advantages and political instruments of exchange, gift and redistribution, rather than as a property to manage and extract revenue from.34 This kind of social authority, which is going to be explained later, was linked with obligations to invest in community resources.

31 Pandey, 2000 32 Mosse, D. 2006 33 Mosse, D. 2006 34 Gunnell, Y. and Krishnamurthy, A. 2003

‐ 32 ‐


The earlier British colonial project involved the demilitarization of the warrior kingdoms, the consolidation of power through the allocation of the property rights of tanks and the imposition of tributes. Series of prescriptions of property, law, revenue or engineering were created by British Government to manage the water tanks35. It is necessary to emphasize the Madras Compulsory Labour Act of 1858, the most popular among the Acts that British Government tried to implement in this period, known also as “Kudimaramath” Act. This Tamil‐Arabic word means “people’s participation”, and it is related with the belief (which has been denial later by some historians) that traditional maintenance of tanks was carried through by the community in a voluntary way. This collective action took place in many areas, but it was under the force of the king and not in a voluntary manner through an ideal self‐managing community. The purpose of the Act was to legalize compulsory community labour maintenance and penalise the non‐performance of it. 36 But these colonial interventions in the management, made from a bureaucratic British rationality, were not working 37 . Moreover, the appropriation of the tanks by the government disencouraged the community to contribute into the repair.

After Independence, and with the abolition of the zamindari system, the central policies were to enhance the control of the resources putting the management of the tanks under the Minor Irrigation Department. A big number of tanks managed by the state fell into disrepair because village communities stopped contributing on the supposed voluntary labour of maintaining tanks (Kudimaramath) during the British period, and also due to a state, which was not able to perform or pay the functions earlier executed by the people . 38

Present status of tanks and decay factors Most of the tanks are centuries‐old structures. In the absence of an administrative authority clearly identifiable and capable to be responsible, many irrigation works are in a state of disrepair, and the national tank‐irrigated area is in decline39. In India, the irrigated land by tanks has decreased from the 17.33% of the total irrigated area in 1950‐51 to the 6,93% in 1985‐86, what means a decreasing of the 17% (and the total net irrigated area has increased from 20,152,000 to 43,049,000 what is an increasing of 106.44 %). In Tamil Nadu the tank irrigated area by tanks is bigger but has had more drastic decreasing trends, from the 37.66 % of the total net irrigated land in 1967‐68 to the 21.65% in 1986‐87, what means a decreasing of 48% (the total net irrigated area has decreased from 2,629,000 ha to 2,356,000 ha, which means that has decreased a 11.59%) . 40

The main reasons that explain this decay are related to changes in the society: increased water demand, land fragmentation, changed land‐use patterns,

35 Mosse, D. 2006 36 Janakarajan, S., 2003 37 Mosse, D. 2006 38 Pandey, 2000 39 Gunnell, Y. and Krishnamurthy, A. 2003 40 Agarwal, A., 2005

‐ 33 ‐


encroachment in the catchment area, supply channels and tank bed41. There are some other physical factors which are consequence of the absence of regular maintenance: silt accumulation in tank bed and in supply channels, erosion of tank bunds and poor and damaged conditions of regulatory structures such as sluices, and surplus weirs. The frequent occurrence of droughts and irregular and inadequate supply to tanks have also contributed42 . In addition, there are other institutional reasons, like the weakening of the structures of village authority (reflected in changed landholding patterns, specially land transfers from upper castes to lower castes or to landholders outside the village) which hold the irrigation systems or make the cooperative water management possible (the TII, which are going to be explained in the following chapter)43. And in recent times, the increase in groundwater exploitation and some state policies like subsidies for agricultural inputs (electrical power, fertilizers, water, pump‐sets and fuel) which gave incentive to the development of groundwater irrigation. Also the government has preferred to construct larger dams rather than enhancing the network of village tanks . 44

The concept of Traditional Irrigation Institutions (TII) in the context of South India from the literature The Traditional Irrigation Institutions (TII) are a kind of organised village authority which has or had (according to villages) the control over productive resources like land and water. The aim of this institution is to manage the tank and the tank water, including the fact that it is the body legitimized by the villagers to enhance the informal code related to water sharing and conflict resolutions.

TII is formed by a group of village people who can have different responsibilities. On one hand there are ones whose responsibility is focused only to irrigation, like Kavaimaniyam or Vaykalmanyam (which means “canal manager”), or Neerkatti (which means “water guides”). On the other hand there are people with some other responsibilities, apart from irrigation, in other social activities like to organize the temple festivals, to solve the caste issues in the village (case of the Nattamai, caste leader) or to help in various ceremonies (case of Kambakaran). In general, Nattamai and Kavaimaniyam members are from an upper caste and the post use to be hereditary; but now this way of selection is changing in some villages, like have been observed in our case of study. Neerkatti, Thotti and Kambakaran are always S.C.

There are two levels of organization among the members of the TII. One is at decision making level (Nattamai and Kavaimaniyam), and the other one is at manual work level (Neerkattis, Thotti and Kambakaran). The main responsibility of Neerkattis is to inspect the tank and the supply channels and to notice Nattamai or Kavaimaniyam in case of deterioration or damage. There is also another category of worker, the Thotti, who can work at same time as Neerkati or substitute him as has been observed in our cases of study.

41 Mosse, D. 2006 42 Janakarajan, S. 1991 43 Mosse, D. 2006 44 Pandey, 2000

‐ 34 ‐


Nattamais or Kavaimaniyam, with the help of Neerkatis, organize the nanjai landowners in collective action when maintenance work is necessary . 45

Now these TII still exist in different ways due to some causes. In the same way as water tanks, there are some institutional and physical factors that, interacting among themselves, have created several different situations of TII’s level of power. All these institutional and physical factors are influencing in the lost of authority (which means also the lost of interest of the powerful people resulting in the absence of decision making) of the TII and in the farmers’ lost of interest in maintaining the tank. And more than this is the lost of interest of the powerful. So this TII are based in a hierarchy system and in a supposed community feeling that today, with the development of the society and the new technologies, which have changed the access to the water resources, are not existing in the same way. The current management of tanks, in which are taking part external village actors like NGOs, the Government or the World Bank, will be explained in the next chapter.

45 Janakarajan, S. 2003

‐ 35 ‐

3

Current Management of tanks and Stakeholders

Management of tank: functions, resources and uses The aim of the following chapter is to explain the several elements of the management of tanks nowadays, being a base to understand the relation between the society and the nature in the tank ecosystem. The management becomes the space where the elements and stakeholders interact.

The current management of tanks has a wide variability among the states of South India (Andhra Pradesh, Karnataka, Maharashtra, Kerala, Tamil Nadu and Pondicherry)46. Due to these differences, and the complexity of summarizing it, this chapter is focused in the tank management in Tamil Nadu, our case studies’ area, commenting only occasionally references of other states.

This chapter describes the management activities related with the functions, resources and uses of the tank, the responsibilities of different institutions and the role of different stakeholders involved or related with the management.

In the figure 1 we can observe a schematic representation of the main stakeholders’ relationships (conflicts, cooperation and pressure) and the management activities as a virtual space where the relation takes place. This figure is not compiling all the stakeholders, because in fact, there are more government departments than PWD (in charge of tanks’ infrastructures) involved in the management and some other international institutions or western countries governments involved in the socio‐economical complex dynamic of tank management, as it is explained along the chapter.

This scheme is focused in the management of village tank at local level and has the aim to help in the understanding the management of the non‐system tank mainly and for this reason there is no any reference about the water distribution activities between tanks and their connection with the anicuts . 47

In the scheme, management activities are shown with clear blue squares. The management activities shown are the auctions as the main form of management of natural resources apart from water, the maintenance and the tank rehabilitation. Actually the tank rehabilitation is part of the maintenance but it appears separated to underline the importance of the role of the NGOs and international organisations like World Bank and European Union. In the scheme, each typology of stakeholder is represented with different forms and colours of the figures.

46 Vaidyanathan, A, 2001 47 Anicut is a weir to diverse the river flows to a cascade of system tanks. See annex 6 glossary

‐ 36 ‐


Panchayat Union

Village Panchayat

Central Government

Traditional irrigation institution

World Bank

NGOs

Water User Association

State government PWD

Farmers

European Union

Landless

Local level (village)

TANKREHABILITATION

AUCTIONS MAINTENANCE

Local manager

MANAGEMENT ACTIVITY

State management

International

National

Block level manager

Enabler through funds and community mobilization

Users

Cooperation, mobilisation of funds, community mobilisation

Pressure and influence

Conflict

Stakeholder typology Stakeholder relationship

Local level management

Figure 4. Schematic representation of stakeholders’ relations and the management activities where they take place. Source: own elaboration.

Property rights of tanks First of all, for a proper understanding of the current management of tanks, it is important to explain who have the property rights of the tank ecosystem and which are the implications in the management.

Technically, all the over 39,000 tanks in Tamil Nadu are property of the state48 49. In Tamil Nadu, larger tanks with ayacuts over 100 acres or 40 ha are under the responsibility of PWD (Public Works Department), as well as all the systems tanks, and the rest of the Panchayat Unions (PU). The 23% of the tanks (8,939 out of which 3697 system‐tanks ) are under responsibility of PWD and the 77% of all tanks (30,300)50 are under the Panchayat Unions (PU) . 51

48 Janakarajan, S, 2003 49 Mosse,D, 2003 50 DHAN Foundation, 1999 51 Vaidyanathan, A, 2001

‐ 37 ‐


Within the total number of tanks there are also 25% (10,000) of the tanks that have not been standardized, classified as ex‐zamin, but being under the control of the PWD or PU depending on the ayacut size . 52

Farmers have no property rights in tanks or channels, which are classified as porambokku land (meaning common land in Tamil, but really it is a public land), having the farmers only the property of the irrigation canals of their lands.

The property rights of water in tanks is expressed in the right to control the water used for agriculture which is vested by the PU and PWD . 53

The natural resources of tanks (fish, grass, trees and plants, silt, soil) are under the control, in practise, to the responsible of the tank (PU or PWD) in spite of the involvement of some different government departments in the usufruct revenue collection (fishery, revenue and forest departments). PU or PWD alienate every year the rights to manage and enjoy the yield of these resources to the villagers through open auctions, having the highest bidder the usufruct rights over the resources.

Small water bodies (kulams, ooranis, kuttais…)of the tank ecosystem belong to the owner of that land but are really managed at local level by Village Panchayat. 54

The main implications of the property rights in the current management of tanks are that PU and PWD are the main responsible, in theory, to manage the tanks, implementing the proper maintenance and managing the resources, uses and functions. In practice, at local level the informal institutions like TII (Traditional Irrigation Institutions), being explained above and bellow in the current management role, the Village Panchayat and the farmers organized in WUA (Water Users Association, explained later) are the different stakeholders involved at local level. These stakeholders have different relations according the different conditions in every village. Sometimes one of them does not exist or is not active in tank management. Sometimes, the influence of the NGOs is noteworthy. The really managers are these three institutions through usufruct rights. The lack of involvement and funds from the Government is one of the main reasons generally recognized . 55

Maintenance of the tanks: preservation of the functions Taking care of tanks is essential for the preservation of the several functions of the tank ecosystem. The good condition of tanks allow a proper storage of water and then the irrigation as its main economical function, the recharge of drinking water as social basic need, the ecological functions of prevention of floods and soil erosion, etc. To keep all the physical infrastructure of the tank ecosystem means to clear and desilt the supply channels, to strengthen the bund, to ensure the proper performance of the sluices and surplus weirs, and to desilt the tank bed.

In Tamil Nadu the PWD and Union Panchayat are the official administrative institutions who should take care and maintain the tanks, doing all these activities

52 Palanisami,K. 2000 53 Palanisami,K. 2001 54 Interview with Engineering assistant of Marakkanam Union Panchayat in 17th of May 2007 55 Mosse, D, 2003

‐ 38 ‐


according the property rights already explained above. These activities have to be done with a fund available from the state budget, but the money assigned for these purpose is very limited.

The Water Resources Organisation (WRO) of PWD has the responsibility to improve the irrigation infrastructures56 in the state, so it has to allot some funds every year to repair and maintain the PWD tanks. The funds should be proportional (about Rs. 100 per hectare) to the command area of the tank, in the way to reinvest the money collected from the farmers through the ayacut tax (tax from the wet‐land (or nanjai) owners) collected by the VAO (Village Administrative Officer).

The Panchayat Union tanks (or minor irrigation tanks) are maintained financed from minor irrigation grant (for non‐standardized ex‐zamin tanks) and from local irrigation grants (for standardized tanks)57. The local irrigation grants are also called “tank cycle funds” because they are not enough to undertake all the needed repairs in all the tanks, so every year the PU allot money only for few tanks (most of times only one) in a cycle process. The maintenance works from this funding can be done only every five years as much, to ensure the repartition of the fund to all the tanks, but practically most of tanks are bad‐maintained . 58

Actually, there are also some other ways to get funds for the tank maintenance and rehabilitation. The MLAs (Members of Legislative Assembly) have some year‐marked fund which can be allocated in whatever urgent project according to their discretion, and considering the needs and socio‐economic condition of their constituency. That fund can be used for tank rehabilitation and actually the Panchayat Unions are receiving some funds from this institution every year.

Sometimes when the people in the village have an emergency to repair the tank, for example because the bund breaches or the sluice is not working after a severe accident, they can get funds from the MLPs (Members of Legislative Parliament) who have also year‐marked funds to spend in according their own discretion.

Other way to get funds to maintain tanks is through Labour Oriented Funds programs, for example, since 2006 the NREGS (National Rural Employment Guarantee Scheme) have been employing the rural poor in desiltation works in several tanks along Tamil Nadu.

The maintenance of tanks, sometimes starting with the rehabilitation of the derelict tanks, is also undertaken by local and international NGOs with the funds of the Government, the European Commission, the World Bank and some other international institutions and agencies. Although these organizations are self‐considered “non governmental”, most of them are finally funded by government institutions, and they have to work under the guidelines of governments or international institutions . 59

Taking care of tank ecosystems means also to take care of on‐farm development activities in the command area being it a very important part of the whole tank

56 World Bank, 2005. 57 Palanisami,K. 2000 58 Interview with Engineering assistant of Marakkanam Union Panchayat in 17th of May 2007 59 Interview with Ragunath, director of CERD in 7 of April 2007 th

‐ 39 ‐


ecosystem. Hence, it is necessary to take care of the agricultural practices and improve them, for a sustainable management of water and soil for agriculture. It is necessary also the regulation of water allocation, the maintenance of the distribution network and the operation sluices in the ayacut. However, all these works are left to the farmers ayacutdars (explained later) themselves60, displacing the responsibilities to the WUA or to the Traditional Irrigation Institution (TII), which are managing really the tank. The Government don’t take an active role in that works and only sometimes the Agriculture Department or the Agricultural Engineering Department implement some soil and water conservation measures in some tank fed crops . 61

The encroachment is also other reason for the tank deterioration, so it is necessary to deal with it in the maintenance works avoiding and removing the encroached terrain. There are four different types of encroachment according where they are done. The encroachment could be done in the tank bed, in the supply channels, in the irrigation canals and on the bund of the tank. Normally it is allowed some encroachment on the tank bed, in order to use this fertile land in the summer season, for short term crops, and the farmer pays a fine for this use to the Revenue Department. It is supposed that they should remove the encroachment at the end of the season, but many farmers don’t do it. Sometimes farmers who encroach the land break the sluice or surplus weir to decrease the water level avoiding their land flood. The Revenue Department should put the penalties for encroaching in those cases. The lack of will by the administrators and the non‐effectiveness and non strict procedures to punish the encroachers are considered the main reasons of the increment of encroachment . 62

Natural resources management in tank ecosystem The farmers and the users of tanks are who really manage the natural resources of the tank at local level, although they are not the real owners. The rights to manage and allocate the water for irrigation and for other uses and the usufruct 63 rights over the other natural resources such as trees, fish, grass and soil (silt and clay) are hold by the villagers and the local management institutions, like Village Panchayat, Traditional Irrigation Institution and Water Users Association.

Water irrigation, livestock, domestic uses, drinking water and duck rearing uses

The water is the main resource considered in the management of tank ecosystem because the main function of the tank is to provide water for irrigation.

The ayacutdars (the farmers owning land in the command area of the tank) have the rights to use the water of the tanks for agriculture being enforced usually through the recent Water User Associations (WUA) or traditional irrigation institutions (TII). The water is under the control of the owner of the tank (PU/PWD) but in the case of the

60 Vaidyanathan,A. 2001 61 DHAN Foundation, 1999 62 ibid 63 The usufruct is the legal right to use of property which belongs to another. In this case the natural resources belongs to the PWD, PU, and Forest Department which give the usufruct right to the villagers to exploit them.

‐ 40 ‐


dead storage, the Revenue Department has also control rights. At local level the management of water is based in the allocation of water shared among the nanjai (wet land) farmers. The traditional irrigation institution called Nattamaikar, which have the rights to decide about water management, and the waterman (Madayan Thotti or Thotti) appointed and paid by them is still working nowadays in several villages. The main duty of the Thotti is to open and close the sluice of the water tank. However, the traditional irrigation institution are lost in many villages, and the farmers themselves open and close the sluice. The water is allocated by timing and field by field. The water from the tank is free of charge for the farmers and the other users and they can use as many as they want (or they can take). In the case of tanks managed by WUA, sometimes that body is not functioning, because the big landowners who have more than one well and being under the government subsidies for the power supply to extract water from wells, don’t want to collaborate in the tank management because they don’t want to consider the importance of the recharging process from the tank and the problem of groundwater depletion.

The lack of interest in tank management and the preference for individual well irrigation, leads sometimes to leave the tank in bad conditions reducing the recharge64. Actually, a conjunctive use of tanks and borewells should be possible, but it depends on the well density and the awareness of the water scarcity among the farmers and the whole village. For example, in the area with high density of wells (1:2, more than one well for every two hectares of ayacut) the farmers rely on well irrigation and the bad conditions of tanks increase, in opposition when there is a low density of wells in the ayacut area (between 1:5 and 1:10)65. This number of course is not the same everywhere because it depends for example on the geology or the yield and depth of the wells.

Nowadays, the management and maintenance of kulams, ooranis, common wells, etc. and their resources is theoretically done by the Village Panchayat or the informal traditional irrigation institution. Sometimes there is a lack of collective action at the hamlet level66 (or village Panchayat level) and a lack of promotional efforts by the state, which leaves the percolation and recharge ponds like kulams in a serious state of disrepair67. The Agricultural Engineering Department is who should develop the water and soil conservation measures, promoting the percolation ponds . 68

The water of the tank is also used for livestock drinking and bathing. The institution that has the theoretical control over these uses is the owner of the tank. The Revenue Department has also control rights in the dead‐storage use of water for rearing the cattle. However, the villagers enjoy free access for the livestock uses.

The villagers also have free access and withdrawal rights to use the water of the tank for domestic purposes like washing clothes and taking baths, and the management institutions don’t regulate nor control strictly these kind of uses.

64 Palanisami, K, 2000 65 ibid 66 The hamlet is the most local territorial level. One village Panchayat can include one or more hamlets 67 DHAN Foundation, 2006 68 DHAN Foundation, 1999

‐ 41 ‐


Some tanks are also used as a recharge device for a well connected with the pipelines of the village for drinking purpose. Hence, the water of the tank is used as drinking water and its management is under the control of the Village Panchayat.

In only few tanks, the water from the tank is used for duck rearing. This activity is done in the command area land after harvesting the paddy (rice). The management rights are not well defined, but they are enforced by the water users associations. This activity generates sometimes conflicts between different users, affecting the proper management of tank.

Other natural resources

The other natural resources (apart from water) management is based mostly on the usufruct revenue of the natural resources with an economical use. Trees, fish and grass are the main resources with economical profit and they are managed through an open auction, which transfers the right of use this resource from the state property (Panchayat Union or PWD) to the local manager institutions (WUA, Village Panchayat or Traditional Irrigation Institution), who later transfer the rights to the villager (or group of villagers) highest bidder. Normally and theoretically, the Village Panchayat has to ask for a formal permission from PWD or PU (that already ask each department or government institution), paying the baseline rate settled by these institutions to realize the auction. In practice, that money does not arrive sometimes to the PU or PWD and it is kept by the Village Panchayat for development works, in spite of formal receipts fulfilment. It happens because the PU doesn’t have any target settled by the government to get the profits from the tank resources69. The profits of the auction are used for temple festivals and for the village development and they are shared between the institutions involved in the tank management. The share varies in every village and it is not possible to generalize about it, because it is influenced by the village history and the concrete role of each institution at local level.

Also there are some variations on the management in each natural resource at local level, and it is explained along this chapter.

The soil for making bricks and the silt used like manure are resources which are not auctioned nowadays, and they are usually under open access regime.

Trees

The trees that are exploited with an economical use in the tank system are located in three places: trees around the tank bund, trees on the bund, and trees inside the tank bed and in the foreshore area, under the Social Forestry programs for example.

The trees located around the tank bund are under the control of Revenue Department. The right to manage and take profit of the yield of the trees, the fruits and the firewood, are transferred every year by the Revenue Department to the riparian owners living near those trees. The usufruct trees on the bund are under the control of the Revenue Department and Panchayat Union in the PU tanks, and they are under the Revenue Department and PWD in the PWD tanks.

69 Interview with Engineering assistant of Marakkanam Union Panchayat in 17th of May 2007

‐ 42 ‐


The rights to manage and enjoy the productivity of trees are transferred every year by the Panchayat Union and the Revenue Department through open auction in the case of PU tanks. The village Panchayat president, the informal traditional irrigation institution leader or the president of the Water Users Association (WUA), used to take the bid and reauctioned in the village to the highest bidder. In the PWD tanks the rights are alienated also through open auctions by the Revenue Department in presence of PWD officials to the WUA, Village Panchayat or informal village leader.

The important trees for their economical functions (like fruits exploitation in the case of coconuts, palm and tamarind trees), for their ecological functions (strengthening the bund) or for their cultural, social and biodiversity value (like the sacred neem trees) are auctioned as it was already explained above, but the highest bidder have only the rights to take the fruits and some firewood, being not allowed to cut or to remove it. The only trees that are allowed to cut completely are the trees used only for firewood like Acacia nilotica and Vellikatan (Prosopis juliflora). The bushes growing among these trees that are also used as firewood are allowed to be cut.

The number of important trees (sometimes very old ones) is recorded in the list of auctions every year, and there is a big punishment if the tree is removed without permission. In case that someone need or want to cut one of these trees, they have to deal with the Revenue Department, concretely with the District Collector Office, which after giving the permission sends a local Forest Department officer to set the monetary value of the tree. Usually those trees are reauctioned after the payment of their economical values.

The Forest Department had been implementing projects planting fuelwood tree plantations inside the tank beds and in the foreshore area from the sixties to nowadays. The most common specie planted is Acacia nilotica and the usufruct rights are transferred to the highest bidder through open auction after ten or twenty years of growth. The only people who are allowed to participate in the auction are forest contractors. The revenue from the auction is shared between the village Panchayat (60%) and the Forest Department (40%). This kind of trees are not allowed to cut and they belong to the owner of the tank. The confluence of that forestry activity with the desiltation activities and the lack of vigilance by the Social Forestry Division (SFD) to avoid livelihood‐driven encroachment of plantations results in a low yield of the tree crops.

Fish

The responsible of the fish resource of the tank PU/PWD depending have the rights to control the fishery activities. When the water level is below the sluice the Revenue Department have also rights over the fish resource. Theoretically, according to several Government Orders (G.O.) the fishery rights have to be leased to Fisheries Cooperative Societies (FCS) (with fishermen and scheduled caste people engaged in fishing), but if there isn’t anyone which wants to take the usufruct rights of fishing, they are transferred in an open auction to the highest bidder. Sometimes the fish is shared among the users in a practice called “vellai veechu” in which all the interested persons

‐ 43 ‐


receive equally a fixed quantity of fish free of cost. This practise used to be managed by the traditional irrigation institution . 70

There are some tanks in which the WUA (or the Tank Association (TA) in the case of the Pondicherry state) is controlling the fish activities and the auctions of this resource, sharing the benefits with the Village Panchayat71. The sharing of revenue from the auctions is in many village a source of conflicts between the Village Panchayat and the WUA.

In other cases, the traditional irrigation institution is the main institution who is managing the auctions of fish in cooperation with the Village Panchayat. In some villages the Panchayat is the only institutions who have the control over the fish.

After the auction, to control the fish is necessary to have a vigilant appointed by the highest bidder, in order to watch the resource against theft.

Grass

The management of the grass resource is divided in the two kinds of exploitation. There are the grazing rights for rearing the cattle and the rights to collect the hard grass for selling it as material for constructing roofs.

The grazing rights are commonly in open or free access regime in the tank bed area. Only in the case of the Social Forestry programmes grazing cattle is not allowed during three years after planting, to protect the tree crops from livestock damage (to ensure the growth of saplings), and being controlled in theory by SFD. When there are no tree crops, the grass is under the control of the responsible of the tank (PU or PWD) and the usufruct rights for grazing in the practice are transferred to the villagers without auctions. This use of the grass for grazing has to be done with the connivance of the roofing rights of the grass.

The hard grass (like Saccharum sponteneum), is under the control of the PU/PWD, the owner of the tank, and it is auctioned by the main local managers of the tank (Village Panchayat, Traditional Irrigation Institution or WUA) after getting the permission and paying the baseline rate of the PU or PWD. The highest bidder after the auction has the right over it selling to the villagers and usually it is not allowed to graze the cattle before harvesting the hard grass. Actually, the cattle is used to eat more amount of mild annual grass, which is a more nutritious fodder (Cynodon doctylon, Cyperus rotundus, Paspalum scrobiculatum, Chloris barbata…) than the perennial hard grass used for thatching the house, so these two uses are compatible after the rainy season, when the grass starts to grow.

Soil: brick making and silt as manure

The soil of the tank bed, apart from the use for maintenance desiltation of the bund strengthening, has also other two economical uses as raw material for building (clay soil for bricks making) and as manure in the land (silt). The brick making is not a common in all the tanks, this economical activity is only made in some places. The

70 Palanisami, K, 2001 71 Palanisami, K, 2001 and Interview with Raghunathan 7th april 2007

‐ 44 ‐


control is vested from the PU in PU tanks and from the PWD and Revenue Department in PWD tanks to the interested villagers.

Although the silt is under the control of Revenue Department in PU tanks, and under the Revenue Department and PWD together in the PWD tanks, in practice the silt extraction from the tank to use it as manure is enjoyed by farmers with free access.

These two uses are allowed and they are not strictly regulated, because if they are done at small scale and in a proper way, they contribute to the desiltation of the tank bed. The PWD has settled a Government Order in which it is allowed to withdraw soil from the PWD tanks with the proper guides of the PWD officials. This G.O. is applied in practice as open access to the soil resource, so it looks like the government allow to spend less money in tank rehabilitation.

Stakeholders in tank management After the explanation of the different processes and activities needed to undertake referring to the management of the whole tank ecosystem and the different resources linked with it, the second part of this chapter will explain the role of the different stakeholders involved, and what are their duties in case of being managers, or the influence in case of being users or non‐manager institutions.

Management Institutions The first group to analyze and to explain is formed by the management institutions, which are mainly involved in the management in the local, state and national level: the State and Central Government and their several departments, the Panchayati Raj Institutions (PRI) at different levels, the Water Users Association (WUAs) and the Traditional Irrigation Institutions (TIIs).

State and Central Government: programmes for Tank Rehabilitation and Participatory Irrigation Management (PIM)

The Central Government and the governments of different states in South India have been implementing programmes to promote the tank irrigation in the rehabilitation, maintenance needs, and in participatory irrigation management policies. However it is known and recognised the lack of sufficient investment efforts and a real interest72 73 from the government to deal with the challenge of the tank irrigation development.

In the rehabilitation activities the State government have a preponderant role in front of the Central Government. As we already explain above, in each maintenance or management activity, lot of departments of the State government (Public Works Department, Revenue Department, Agriculture Department, Agriculture Engineering Department, Forest Department, for some tanks fishery department) are involved directly or indirectly in the management, so the role of the State government is more complex then, because it appears with different approaches at the same time.

72 Palanisami, K, 2000 73 Vaidyanathan, A, 2001.

‐ 45 ‐


The Tamil Nadu government, mainly from the minor irrigation wing of the PWD, have been implementing some programmes since the 50s of last century, when it undertook the Special Minor Irrigation Programme (SMIP). The Desilting‐Cum Restoration scheme (DCR) and the Tank Restoration scheme (TR) were implemented in the sixties. After the Accelerated Minor Irrigation Programme (AMIP, 1974), the State government set up the Tank Modernization Project in 1984, with financial aid from the European Economic Community (EEC) and it achieved the modernization of more than 65074 tanks in two phases, and the second one extended with a cost of 175 Rs. crores75. The lack of awareness and training of the local people for a proper conservation of the rehabilitated structures left the rehabilitated tanks in bad conditions finally. With the aim to standardize the ex‐zamin tanks and to rehabilitate the PWD tanks, the State Tank Irrigation Project has been implemented since 1995, completing successfully 742 projects76 till nowadays. Like in the rest of the chapter, we emphasize the accepted and generally considered need of improving the fund availability and the effectiveness of the rehabilitation projects, but the general and descriptive approach of the management of this text it is not the proper site to discuss it deeply. But we can say that the conjunctive use management of surface and groundwater, the participatory management programmes consolidation in effectiveness way and the combination with other programmes like poverty alleviation schemes are part of the solution.

In the management activities, it is important to underline the importance of the poverty alleviation schemes (like Jawahar Rojgar Yojana in 1997 77 or National Rural Employment Guarantee Act (NREGA) in 2005) and the watershed development projects, with construction of percolation ponds undertook by the Central Government, which have had and favourable impact on the tank ecosystem, with successful maintenance works including desiltation and repairing works.

The NREGA ensures 100 days of un‐skilled work with a wage of 60‐80 Rs. per day per financial year, for one adult member of each household in rural areas78. The works that are under this scheme include very often the desiltation activities on the tank bed. This activity is very useful for lots of villages, maintaining their tanks at the same time that they have an employment opportunity.

Apart from the rehabilitation projects and policies, the promotion of people’s participation in the water irrigation management is very important and it is part of the role of the Central and State government. For this reason it is also important to understand the social dynamics of tank ecosystem.

Since 1970s the Central Government has been emphazising on the importance of the participation in the irrigation management through different programmes (Command Area Development Programme in 1974) and in several plans, measures and institutions during the next 1980s (National Water Policy in 1987) and 1990s (Committee in Pricing for Irrigation in 1992). However, still in 1995, only few tanks and their command area

74 Palanisami, K, 2000 75 1 crore = 107. 1 € = Rs. 55 in June 2007 76 Palanisami, K, 2000 77 further information: Press Information Bureau, Government of India, official website, http://pib.nic.in/ 78 NRGEA law, 2005

‐ 46 ‐


were managed by Water Users Associations79. The dependency of the farmers to the government and the lack of funds were and are still the main reasons. The low community mobilization by the villagers themselves, due to local conflicts of interest between different groups of users and political parties, and the caste‐based conflicts constitute other important reason. The lack of training and motivation of the government officials and the failure of the institutional approach and arrangements are the other considered reasons.

In Tamil Nadu case, the State government have been especially interested in Participatory Irrigation Management since the beginning of 1990s. Under the Water Resource Consolidation Project (WRCP) in 1995, funded by the World Bank, the PWD formed the Water Resources Organization (WRO), who had the task to improve the irrigation systems through programmes like Farmers Organisation Turnover (FOT), the 2007 World Bank Project. This programme has the aim to transfer the management of tanks to the Farmers Organizations. Due to the inefficacy and delay of the formation of farmers associations under this programme, the World Bank advised to enact in Tamil Nadu a law based on Andhra Pradesh PIM experience . 80

Andhra Pradesh (AP) set up the AP Farmers Management of Irrigation Systems Act in 1997. Its main objective is to create WUAs formed by the farmers of a determinate area called water‐user‐area, who have to participate compulsory in that association . 81

The Tamil Nadu government enacted in 2000 the Tamil Nadu Farmers Irrigation systems following the AP example.

Water Users Associations (WUA)

The WUA, according to this act, has the duty of managing the water tank and its uses, planning the water rotational supply system, maintaining the irrigation system, solving the conflicts among the users, removing the encroachments, and raising the resources and funds for the tank maintenance as main functions of this institution. The WUAs are also organized in federative institutions at different territorial levels, based on legal watershed frames (WUA, Distributary Committee, Project Committee and Apex Committee) and under projects and initiatives of some NGOs (like DHAN Foundation experience). Nowadays the WUAs are working as active management institutions in some villages. In 2007, in Tamil Nadu there were 1,136 WUAs, while in Andhra Pradesh there are working 10,799, in Maharashtra 1,100, and in Karnataka 2,377 . 82

The WUAs interact with the Panchayati Raj Institutions (PRI) in the villages and block level, through the federation institutions of WUA at different levels. In the case of the Union Panchayat, the relation with WUA is mainly about the rehabilitation and maintenance of tanks and the funds for this purpose. At village level, this relation is based on the sharing or not of the management activities and the usufruct revenues. Sometimes the WUA manage the tank independently, being like a Technical

79 Palanisami, K, 2000 80 Janakarajan, 2003 81 For more information see Ratna, R and Prudhvikar,R, 2005 82 Press Information Bureau, Government of India, 2007: http://pib.nic.in/

‐ 47 ‐


Committee under the village Panchayat, which takes care of financial aspects. In some villages, the relation between Village Panchayat and the WUA is focused in the management of the natural resources auctions and their usufructs.

The WUA interacts of course with other users of the tank and the Traditional Irrigation Institution like we will explain later.

Panchayati Raj Institutions (PRI)

The Panchayati Raj Institutions (PRI) are an active stakeholder in the tank management, in spite of not being everywhere involved with the same level of implication. The Panchayat Union have, as we already explained, the property rights of some tanks (with ayacut of <40 ha) and their resources, and they manage theoretically, the auctions of them. The role of the Village Panchayat nowadays is expressed in three ways. The first is that in some villages that lost the Traditional Irrigation Institution (TII) and didn’t develop a strong and effective WUA, the Village Panchayat is the main institution who manage the tank ecosystem. The second is that being the formal representative of the government in the village, village Panchayat is who finally manages the auctions of the resources at local level. In that issue this institution has interactions with the WUA and the TII, in the sharing of the usufruct revenue. The third and last one is that the Village Panchayat manage the NREGA at local level, implementing the desiltation activities in the tanks. This situation results in some empowerment of this local institution because normally was the PWD or the NGOs with international funds who used to do the desiltation activities.

Traditional Irrigation Institutions (TII)

Traditionally in South India every village had its own informal institutions managing the village and the irrigation for the agriculture. As tank irrigation is part of the village life, these institutions are also involved in tank management, with ‐in some cases‐ the help of some people involved only in irrigation activities (such as Kavaimanyam or Neerkatti) . Thus, the nattamaikar or the village leader (ur talever in Tamil), helped by workers as thotti, exist still now in many villages, but sometimes with a transformation in their duties and functions. The role of them depends on the recognition of the local people and the authority that this traditional institution has. Sometimes the traditional irrigation is not working or loose its power, and it’s only managing the temple. In other cases the traditional irrigation institution is the real manager of the temple, village and tank in connivance and cooperation with the Panchayat, who is the formal institution recognized officially, responsible of the bureaucratic relations with the government.

The relation with the WUA is also quite interesting to note, because depending on the previous importance of the TII, the modern institution, the WUA, would take the main role managing the tank or not.

Users and beneficiaries: conflicts and management The different users and villagers through their interaction and their interests (stakes) as beneficiaries of the different uses, functions and resources of the tank ecosystem influence (or not) the management and the decision making process.

‐ 48 ‐


The different conflicts between the users and the management institutions are important to understand the social dynamics of the tank ecosystem. It is very important to say finally, that there are some general resources, functions and uses from the tank ecosystem which are common for all the population, like the drinking water, the ecological functions, the cultural functions, etc. All these makes that the whole population must be considered beneficiaries of the tank ecosystem, more directly or not, but all of them take benefit.

Farmers

The farmers (considering the landowners working in agriculture)are important stakeholders in the tank management. Among this group there are some differences clearly marked by the use of water.

The farmers having nanjai land used to have the best social position in the village and legally they are the only members of the WUA, in case of existence, according to TNFMI Act. However, not all the nanjai farmers are really involved in the management of the tank, and also many of them don’t considerate themselves members of the WUA, although it is compulsory by law. Some rich farmers, well owners and encroachers, don’t participate formally in the WUA or in the management in general, but they are making influence on it, due to the informal relations between the institutions and also to their influence in the social life of the village in a hierarchical society context. The farmers having punjai land, in spite of not being involved directly in the WUA, and their condition of groundwater users and their potential participation in the auctions of natural resources, makes them and important stakeholders that the management has to consider.

Landless people (labourers, shepherds, nomads, etc.) and women

The landless people constitute a wide group which have different interest than farmers on the tank uses, functions and resources. In addition among this group there is a clear diversity of stakeholders. The agricultural labourers and shepherds are direct users of tanks in spite of not having land. The labourers depend, as the farmers, on the tank to have daily work and the shepherds use the water and the grass for grazing. Some landless people also use the grass in the tanks for roofing, with an open access for this resource, or they participate in the natural resources auctions of the tank. There are other groups of landless people like fishermen and duck owners that also make different use of tank ecosystem.

The nomads often hunt some wild animals in the tank, or they take fish if there is no auction procedure in some tanks.

The women also have a particular approach of the tank ecosystem because they wash the clothes and vessels and take baths in the tank, apart from their possible agricultural tasks.

Finally the people with other occupation apart from agriculture (grocery shop owners, taxi and lorry drivers, students, road construction workers, etc.) are indirect beneficiaries, through the drinking water, uses of wells, the revenues of the auctions spent in the temple festivals, the ecological functions like prevention of floods, etc.

‐ 49 ‐


All that diversity of stakeholders who are related with different uses has to be also considered for the management in order to prevent and solve the conflicts when they arise between the different users.

Conflicts and management

It is important to emphasize how the conflicts among nanjai farmers (head tail v/s tail end or encroachers v/s non‐encroachers) and between farmers and other users (farmers v/s livestock and duck rearing uses) difficult the proper maintenance of the tank (bund deliberate breaches, burning grass, bad growth of seedlings, etc.). The conflict between different users made necessary the existence of some rules and policy to exploit the resources. In that sense we can note the existence of the Mamool namas that are documents written during 1815, setting down the traditional rules and regulations for augmentation and distribution of tank water in North Arcot 83 . The management institution have to regulate also the exploitation of other natural resources apart from water, setting when should be allowed to rear the cattle in the tank bed, doing compatible the growth of trees for example. It also have to prevent some inter‐villages conflicts that appear when more than one village is using tank, or when there is some encroachment of the supply channels or on the foreshore area from people coming from the up‐stream village.

The Executive Committee of the WUA, the nattamaikar or the Panchayat have also to intervene and to solve the disputes when they arise.

The causes of the conflicts are sometimes related with the perception of incompatibility of uses and with the scarcity of the resources, which originates competition among the different users.

NGOs and Social Movements role in Tanks promotion Nowadays in India, lots of NGOs and several organisations are promoting the rain water harvesting systems over all India. The Center for Science and Environment84 (CSE), started to implement since 1998 the National Water Harvesters Network which have the aim of organise and promote research, advocacy, awareness raising activities and field action programmes85, and to keep in contact the organisations working on that issue. This network has its own unit in Tamil Nadu with the head office in Chennai. At the State Level, also, in Tamil Nadu lots of NGOs are working in cooperation or separately to promote the tank irrigation. In the following lines we are trying to explain the role of the NGOs in the current management of tanks, and also in the promotion of them. We would like to explain as well what we could observe about the opinion of the NGOs about the tanks ecosystems, and if it is near or far to the approach of this study. For that purpose this text present the activities of some NGOs working near our study area or because they have a lot of experience and relevance as institutions working in tank rehabilitation and in tank promotion.

83 Vaidyanathan, A, 2001 84 Create at 1980 the CSE is a an independent, public interest organisation which aims to increase public awareness on science, technology, environment and development (www.cseindia.org) 85 http://www.rainwaterharvesting.org/index_files/Harvester%27s_Network.htm

‐ 50 ‐


The main role of the NGOs in general is focused in the community mobilisation for tank irrigation promotion and rehabilitation. They are present in the tank rehabilitation projects doing technical assistance and giving funds to carry out the projects.

The funds from international organisations, government of western countries, State and Central Government of India and some private companies are very important for the project implementation and this it is perceived very crucial by villagers, the beneficiaries of those projects.

The NGOs are also facilitating the formation of the WUA in the institutional building and training its members in agricultural techniques, and in capacity building for a WUA self‐reliance along the time. Some NGOs are also trying to recover the traditional knowledge of tank management. They have been doing some research and they will to recover the traditional water harvesting systems and their management. From the 1970s, when Ford Foundation and the Centre for Water Resources of Anna University (Chennai) carried out pilot studies to evaluate the status of tanks, the NGOs have been involved in projects which came later and that we already explain before.

The NGOs working nowadays in tank rehabilitation have different approaches to the idea of tank ecosystem, and these approaches are related with the mission of each NGO.

There are some NGOs with a mission centred in development and poverty alleviation like DHAN Foundation, other focused in Ecology and rural development like the Center for Ecology and Rural Development (CERD) and the organization called Palmyra (Center for Ecological landuse, water management and rural development). There are others paying specific attention to the water management like Auroville Water Harvest.

DHAN Foundation is a large organization that has a lot of experience in tank rehabilitation and promotion in Tamil Nadu, Pondicherry and Andhra Pradesh 86 . Seated in Madurai, this NGO started at the beginning of 1990s with its tank rehabilitation projects and, after lots of efforts, they realized of the need of promoting permanent and self‐reliance institutions, to maintain and manage the tanks and to create a federation of it through its Vayalagam project. DHAN Foundation has an approach to the tank ecosystem looking it as a device to ensure the livelihood and to reduce the poverty. Its publications show the multiple uses perspective, but they always prioritise the farmers’ involvement in its Vayalagam institutions 87 . Understanding and deciding if the NGOs have or not an integrated perception of tank ecosystem, and if they are influencing the villagers in this way, we could see how DHAN Foundation believe in the need to rehabilitate the inter‐linked water bodies (tanks, kulams, ooranis) at village level, building institutions for that purpose. CERD is one of the three NGOs involved in the Tank Rehabilitation Project of Pondicherry that started in 1999 and is still working. Working mainly in those projects, we can say that

86 DHAN Foundation, 2006. 87 further information in http://www.dhan.org/themes/vayalagam.php

‐ 51 ‐


this NGO has a multiple use perspective in their implementation of Tank Associations involving farmers, landless and women in the management institutions.

Palmyra works in Pondicherry (TRPP) and Tamil Nadu. From 1999 to 2006 Palmyra implement the “Rehabilitation project of integrated tank management systems in the Kaluvelli watershed” in Viluppuram district, Tamil Nadu. Funded by the Indo‐Canadian Environmental Facility (ICEF) the objective is “to improve the livelihood and long‐term agricultural outlook for the Kalivelli watershed and to set up a workable community‐based mechanism to manage tanks”88. A total number of 29 tanks were rehabilitated under this project. In the implementation of the WUA Palmyra followed basically the Tamil Nadu Management of Irrigation Systems Act (2000) guidelines, involving the farmers of the ayacut of each tank in the WUA, and rehabiliting the tank infrastructure at the same time. The involvement of women in the WUA through groups called Women Pattadar Groups constitute one of the important contributions of this project, although those groups and some WUAs are not working finally nowadays in some villages after Palmyra finished the project and left the villages on their own.

Auroville Water Harvest 89 is working in the Kaluvelly‐Pondicherry coastal sedimentary basin, which has been accepted as one of the catchments of the UNESCO HELP Basin Program. The goal of this NGO is to promote sustainable solutions for a comprehensive management of water, involving multiple stakeholders. The integrated approach to the water management at watershed level but also at village level, with projects of tank rehabilitation combined with sanitation and organic farming initiatives, show that this organisation is considering the water tank as an ecosystem with all the functions, uses and roles. It is also important to underline that this NGO emphasizes the trainings and the environmental awareness in its projects . 90

International Stakeholders: World Bank and European Economic Union Finally, non directly visible, and phisically far from the local and ground level, the international organisations are influencing the tank management, rehabilitation and promotion activities and the participatory irrigation programmes as part of the global policies of development in the globalisation process and the international relations between North and South.

The European Union and the World Bank have been during the recent years the main international institutions who give funds or loans and technical assistance for tank rehabilitation and promotion.

In Tamil Nadu, more than 560 tanks of PWD and 80 ex‐zamin tanks were rehabilitated and modernised under the technical assistance and funds of the EU91. The WRCP (1995) were also funded by World Bank92 and the Tank Rehabilitation Project of Pondicherry (TRPP) was fund from 1999 to 2004 by the European Commission. The

88 Palmyra, 2006 89 further information: http://www.auroville.org/environment/harvest/harvest.htm 90 Auroville Water Harvest, profile 2006, Unpublished Document 91 Sakthivadivel, R, 2004 92 World Bank, 2005

‐ 52 ‐


EEC also funded the tank rehabilitation project in Orissa93. These are examples of the importance of the international funds for the tank irrigation development. Here it is also important to underline that the priorities and the objectives of the projects are then marked by the international institutions and governments of western countries who grant the funds through international cooperation programmes.

93 Asian Development Bank, 2006

‐ 53 ‐

4

Methodology

The objective of this chapter is to explain and clarify what kind of methodology has been used to evaluate the perception of the local population respect to their ecosystem in our study cases. In the next paragraphs it is described the different steps of the study from the general background of the study area, and the selection of the study cases, to the concrete surveys carried out to evaluate the social perception of water tanks as ecosystems and to test and reach the hypotheses and objectives specified in chapter 1.

This study makes the research field divided in two aspects. The first is the approach to the system as an ecosystem. The second one is the field work research about the social perception of the tank as whole ecosystem.

Research methods on data collection The methods used in the research were applied in order to know how the tank ecosystem is in the ecological and environmental aspects and how the tank ecosystem is in the social aspects. The more developed part is the social one rather than the ecological, because the central part of this study is the social perception of the people.

The present chapter is organized in two main parts: the collection of the general information about the current status of the tanks in our study area and the data collection in the two cases of study: Endiyur and Attur. This last part is divided also in two parts. The first one explains the methods used to know and understand the village and the tank ecosystem. The second one explains the surveys for data collection to evaluate the social perception about the tank as ecosystem.

All the methods have limitations, and the authors recognize that the chosen of methods can be developed further in future researchs, to consolidate or to add new methodology in this approach to the ecosystemic perception and management.

General background of tanks in the area: selection of the study case The study area chosen was the Kaluvelli watershed, in their part located within the Viluppuram District. The first step of the research was to know the current status of water tanks in this area. For this purpose some bibliography was collected and the main NGOs working in tank rehabilitation in the area of study were contacted.

To understand the role of the NGOs and to learn about the tank rehabilitation works and the institutions built by them (WUA in Tamil Nadu and Tank Association in Pondicherry) four NGOs (Center for Ecology and Rural Development (CERD), Palmyra (Center for Ecological landuse, water management and rural development), Auroville Water Harvest, DHAN Foundation) were contacted to interview their directors, community mobilizers or project managers. The Table 2 shows the formal interviews done with NGO representatives. The informal interviews with community organizers in the field work of NGO projects visits are not registered. One example of the questions asked in one interview is shown in the Annex 2.

‐ 54 ‐


Among the data collection of the general information we attended to one workshop at the French Institute of Pondicherry: Finding social and cultural issues in emerging irrigation institutions on 12th April 2007, were we had also the opportunity to give a speech explaining our ideas..

Interviewed person

NGO Charge Date(s) of interview

Raghunathan CERD Director 6th of February 2007

7th of April 2007

Jürgen Pütz Palmyra Director 8th of February

15th of March

M.S Shanmugam

DHAN Foundation Project Officer and regional coordinator

12th of February

A. Gurunathan DHAN Foundation Project Officer 15th of February

12th of March

R.Pushparaj DHAN Foundation Project Executive manager

12th of March

Judith D’Souza Water Harvest Project Manager 18th of May

Gilles Boulicot Water Harvest Executive Director 18th of May

Table 2. Interviews to NGO representative. Source: own elaboration

At the same time, some interviews were done in twelve villages near Tindivanam and Viluppuram towns: Chittamur, Perumbakkam, Allapakkam, Rammaiyanpalayam, Sagadevanpalayam, Molasur, Omandur, Konur, Kanai, Attur, Manur and Endiyur. The interview contained general questions about the village, the tank and the current management of it. The aim of this survey was to learn about about the status of tanks and also to try to find cases of study for the research. In the Annex 2 can be found an example of the survey questions sheet.

Selection Criteria for the study case villages

The objective was to find villages with the maximum number of the criteria shown in the Table 3.

Finally we select Endiyur and Attur. Endiyur accomplish all the criteria except the size of the village. Also in this village was easy to find a house to live and to have village facilities, due to the existence of bus stop with frequent buses.

Attur has non‐system tank(s) and a Traditional Irrigation Institution (Nattamais) still working. This village also manage through auctions (not open access) the common resources, and fits with the requirements being a small village in rocky zone.

Attur don’t have the presence of WUA, but Palmyra, the NGO that came to Endiyur to implement a rehabilitation project, tried to do unsuccessfully the same in Attur. The

‐ 55 ‐


similarities and the differences between the two villages seem at the beginning an interesting combination proper to reach our goals.

Criteria Reason

WUA in the village Better to understand the current management of tanks

Old WUA (elder than 5 years) To see better the changes

Traditional Irrigation Institution in the village before the WUA or still working now

More interesting history in the village

Common resource management: auction Interesting for the study of the tank as a whole ecosystem

Non‐System Tank Easier to study, bigger dependence on the Tank irrigation

Rocky zone Bigger dependence on tank irrigation

Secondary data available Better to approach the study

Small (no more than 1500) Better to analyze deeply

Logistical: easy to live and commuting. Time of project: 3 months

Possibilities to live in the village First time in India

First research

Better to understand all of the Social‐life in the village an ethnographic understand

NGO in the process of WUA implementation To analyze its role, village more interesting.

The people is getting use about interviews.

Table 3. Criteria to choose the study cases. Source: own elaboration.

Case study data collection As it is already explained before, the following part is divided between the methods used to collect the general information of the village and tank ecosystem description and the surveys to assess the social perception about tank ecosystem.

Description of village and tanks’ ecosystem

Participant observation

We could live during two months in the village and we participated to the social live observing and understanding the social structure and how the different groups undertake the daily activities and the main differences between them. Also we could live the evolution of the seasonal calendar during this two months and during one month after, when we went back to check some information. It is important to remark that we were invited to go to some traditional pregnant and marriage ceremonies (pujas), and to some social meetings about the natural resources and the village management (auction of the road trees and gramma sabha) and the election meeting of the nattamais.

‐ 56 ‐


Participatory rural appraisal (PRA)

The PRA is a group of participatory methods used for the NGOs for self‐analysis assisting to plan the implementation of projects in villages.

The main objectives of the PRA were the following ones:

⋅ To establish rapport with the villagers.

⋅ To know social and livelihood resources available in the village and the general information about the village, understanding the village society, economics (agriculture), politics and history.

⋅ Identify the social segregation of the village in groups and stakeholders and their social situation (demands and problems).

⋅ To have a geographical lay‐out and infrastructural and socio‐economic context of the village.

⋅ To understand the tank ecosystem and all the related aspects (agriculture, crop pattern, labour availability, seasonality of crops, climate and crop pattern and past and present of the tank ).

To reach this objective we arranged meetings to do collective interviews with the villagers.

The first step was the village introducing meeting that we arranged to have preliminary information of the village. We carried out participatory village maps (see Annex 2) while asking and collecting general data about the village. We started explaining to the people who were we (origin, formation) and the objectives of our research. We start to create rapport with the villagers while collecting information about population (households) and the land typology (common, uncultivated, nanjai or punjai lands and waste land), the main infrastructures of the village and their location. We asked also about the main economical activities of the people to have almost their perception about social groups and their daily activities.

To understand better the social and economical situation of the village, we also ask if it exists an economical migration and if exist some SHG and other formal and informal social groups. Knowing the main management institutions, Panchayat and Nattamai, we could understand the administration and management of the village and the main political parties present there.

When doing the natural resources map we could ask about the resources availability and the role of tank ecosystem in it. We collected information about the agricultural practices, the cropping pattern, the natural resources like tamarind trees, trees, grass, and fish, the main irrigation channels, the supply channels, the tank technology in general and their condition. We also get information about the drinking water facilities. Three exercises of resources and infrastructures mapping were carried out. One meeting in Endiyur and two meetings in Attur (separated in Colony and Ur ). 94

94 The Colony is a separated area of the village where the Scheduled Caste people live. The Ur is the separated area where the people belonging to upper castes live. See chapter 5.

‐ 57 ‐


The second step was to contact the social groups that we could identify through the participant observation and the village introducing meetings (see table 4 to know the focus group interviewed).

The objectives of the focus group interviews were:

⋅ To understand the tank ecosystem and all the related aspects (agriculture, crop pattern, labour availability, seasonality of crops, climate and crop pattern and past and present of the tank )

⋅ Identify some preliminary indicators about the different perception about tank ecosystem depending on the social or occupation groups.

⋅ To know about the specific daily activities and practises of each group and their interaction with the rest of tank ecosystem elements, and the role of every group of stakeholders in the tank ecosystem as users or as managers.

⋅ To consolidate the general information of the village and to contrast the information collected through the other methods among the different knowledge and perception of each group.

In the following table are shown the focus groups in each study case.

Focus groups

Endiyur Attur Ur Attur Colony

Farmers with land in Punjai Farmers with land in Nanjai:

Farmers with land in Nanjai Landless people

‐ Periya eri Sangam Women Self Help Group (WSHG)

Women Self Help Group (WSHG) (WUA of big Tank)

Men Self Help Group (MSHG)

‐ Chinna eri Sangam

(WUA of small Tank) Elder people

Farmers with land in Punjai Nattamais

Landless people

Women Self Help Group (WSHG)

Women Pattadar Group (WPG)

Elder people

Nattamais

Table 4. List of focus groups per village. Source: own elaboration.

The first one was the elder people with we did the timeline of the village and the tank to understand their history (major events, major repairs, changing in technical systems).

‐ 58 ‐


With this group we also did the seasonal calendar of the village where the main crops, agricultural practices (use the natural (silt from the tank) and artificial fertilizers), income and expenditure periods, water availability in tanks and wells, climate calendar, auctions and periods of grazing in the tank and the main temple festivals were specified and located along the timeline of the year.

With the farmers of nanjai we repeat this method to cross check the information collected in the previous group mainly in the agricultural aspects and the crops in the nanjai lands. In this group also we check the participatory maps already done in the village introducing meeting to know better the condition of the tanks’ technology (irrigation channels, supply channels, bund). Also we ask to the farmers of nanjai the “way of water” and the wells water availability and we cross check with the farmers of punjai. With this group we also check the seasonal calendar (punjai crops) and the map of natural resources.

Interviewing the Nattamais we could understand the organisation of the temple, their role in the village and tank management and the general social and economical information of the village.

With the landless people (shepherds and agricultural labourers) we tried to focused the interviewed in their labour availability and in the activities and the income and expenditure periods, as shepherds and the calendar of the grazing cattle in the tank bed and in other areas.

The Self‐Help Groups, SHGs (Women SHG and/or Men SHG (in the case of Attur) were interviewed with the aim to know about their role in the village development and to check the general information about the village. The Women Pattadar Groups (in the case of Endiyur) make easy to understand the role of the WUA and the tank rehabilitation project of Palmyra. Speaking with them we also understand better the role of the NGO’s agricultural training in the tank ecosystem’s social perception.

Open‐ended Interviews with “key informants”

The key informants were the administrative institution leaders, the Panchayat president in every village, the Village Administrative Officers (VAOs) and the Electricity Officer. Also we undertake an interview with an assistant engineer in charge of tank rehabilitation from Marakkanam Union Panchayat. Finally we interviewed two key informants that know about the tank rehabilitation project in Endiyur, Tamichedi (WPG member) and Erumalai (Joint‐Secretary of the Periya WUA ). In the case of Attur we interviewed the nattamai of naidu caste to know and understand the social situation of Attur and the issues related with the auctions’ conflict (see chapter 5)

The objectives of these interviews were in general:

⋅ To get the formal and official administrative data of the village

⋅ To know their role in the tank and village management

⋅ To try to get clear and deeper information about specific aspects of the tank management

‐ 59 ‐


Open‐ended Interviews to “key informants”


Nattamai of Naidu caste Panchayat President husband

Panchayat president

Panchayat president husband

Village Administrative Officer (VAO) Panchayat Clark

Village Administrative Officer (VAO) Tamichedi (WPG member)

Erumalai

(Joint‐Secretary of the Periya WUA )

Electricity officer

Assistant Engineer from Marakkanam Union Panchayat

Table 5. List of open interviews to key informants. Source: own elaboration.

Environmental data collection

The environmental data were collected in two ways. One way was searching in the secondary data and bibliography available. The other way was to dedicate five days of field work to visit all elements of the water tank ecosystem paying attention in the environmental compartments and the ecological process between them.

Within this environmental diagnosis we made flora inventory (see annex 3) and soil and rock typology identification.

In order to clarify the dominancy of some flora specie we decided to evaluate the biodiversity of the big tank of Endiyur (Periya Eri) through Simpson’s Biodiversity Index (D) an index that considers at the same time the eveness (the relative abundance of the species making up the richness of an area) and the richness (the number of species per sample). This index has three different related indexes and is used by several authors referring to one of this three. We will follow the explanation of Begon et.al 1999. The Simpson’s Biodiversity index is calculated determining per each specie the proportion of individuals (or biomass) that contributes to the total of the sample. It means the value Pi= n/N where n means the total number of individuals of a particular specie and N means the total number of organisms of all species.

‐ 60 ‐


The Simpson’s Biodiversity index is expressed as follows: 95

In this formula, S is the richness, the maximum number of species of the community.

Hence, the value of the index depends on the richness and on the evenness, the uniformity of the individuals’ distribution among the species. With a fixed richness, D increases with the increment of the evenness. With a fixed evenness, D increases with the increment of richness. The maximum value of the D is the richness (Dmax=S) and then the evenness can be expressed as the maximum value of D if the species were distributed completely uniform among the species. See the following formula.

To calculate this index it is necessary to collect the data of richness and evenness in the field. For this purpose we collect the richness and the abundance of particular specie (n) of all the species in ten samples of 1 m2 in the tank bed, in the water‐spread area with a clay soil.

Picture 1. Counting the abundance

95 Some authors called that index as Simpson’s Reciprocal Index.

‐ 61 ‐


Assessing the social perception about tank ecosystem

Three kinds of surveys were completed as a methods for a quantitative data collection to assess the social perception of water tanks as ecosystems. The first survey was done using the free listing method, the second one using a test about knowledge and use of tank ecosystem and the last one was done using the pilesort method. Totally we did 207 interviews.

In the following paragraphs the three methods are explained mentioning the objectives, the categories in the stratified samples, the way to do it in the field, the knowledge necessary to understand the results, and their limitations and biases associated.

Free listing

The free listing method is useful to define a cultural domain contents and the common understanding of it by the population. It consists in to make a list of the elements that belong or are related with the subject of the cultural domain evaluated. Free listing can help to determine the scope of the domain and also provide some insight about how the domain is structured.

In our case the objective of the free listing was to get a list of the tank ecosystem domain formed by all the uses, resources and functions of it.

To get the list of elements is necessary to find a proper question understandable for the villagers. The specific and proper question found to get the list of resources, uses and functions of the tank was Why is the eri important for the village? And the process to get it is explained in the chapter 6.

The answer of this question has to be an open one, and the interviewed person can not be helped, so as to give him or her freedom to do a list about the elements that at that moment he or she could remember.

Free listing was used with a stratified sample of 54 persons (in interviews about 15 minutes) that include the different groups of people that seems to have, after the previous methods, a different perception about tank ecosystem. The criteria to stratify the sample were: gender, landholding, and typology of land, village, manager or not manager, WUA member or not and the age. The caste and education were written down as additional explicative information.

The list of uses, resources and functions was useful to describe and know all the elements related with the tank ecosystem that the people identify and their importance for them shown in the order and the frequency that the elements are mentioned. Hence, in the list take importance the times that one element is mentioned and its average rank (the average of its position) in the list. In this evaluation is used the “saliency” that is and adaptation of Smith’s index (Jerry Smith 1993) that considers and balances the frequency of each item and the order in the list.

Other objective of the method was to know depending on the number and the type of elements mentioned as more important if the villagers are relating the tank with its different functions. We analyze the list done by all the categories together and separated by groups to understand some differences in the perception of the tank

‐ 62 ‐


ecosystem. The free listing method has some biases that are shared also by the other two methods and are explained bellow in the end of the chapter. The free listing serves also to get the elements used after for the pile sort method.

Pile sort

Usually in the pile sort method, the interviewed people have to sort in piles a number of items according their similarities. The informant can sort cards with the name or description of the item, maybe a photograph or in some cases the objects themselves in case of plants, grain, dry insects and so on.

In our case, a stratified sample of 44 informants from the same different categories used in the free listing exercise, sorted 28 different selected items from the free listing exercise (we collected 51 different items). The items were presented in cards with a picture and the name in English and Tamil and the interviews were about 40 minutes.

We use this method to try to know the relations that the people make among the different elements of the tank ecosystem relating it through ecological relations and showing in this sorts some criteria according the functions, uses and roles of the tank ecosystem. Pile sort method, as free listing exercise, needs to be done individually without help and in a free way to sort the piles as the informant wants. The respondents can put a strange item in a separated pile by itself but it is not allowed to put all together or every item as a separated pile. In the case of it they have to argue the reason. Actually, after concluding the pile sort we always ask about the reason and criteria of items classification. It was done to try to avoid that two respondent with a similar criteria of classification but different level of detail using different number of piles were considered with different social perception. Other reason to do it is to try to see the relationship among the elements of each group and their central element and the relationship between the groups.

It should be mentioned that there is a possible bias sorting the items, mainly in the illiterate people, according pictures similarities (colours, morphology) instead of doing it in a hope way based in some relations between the items. It could be difficult, also, to appreciate small specific details and some differences in the cards pushing the people to be focused in the cards pictures, not in the real element and its characteristics, in the environment. Although our efforts to leave free the people to related the items as they want, these biases are possible.

Finally it is important to underline that this method results very interesting to understand the social perception of the people but the people perceive items as having relations along a multitude of dimensions, and any single sort represents just one compromise solution among several possibilities. For this reason is important to compare this method with the other ones.

Knowledge and use test

To know and analyze deeply the knowledge of the people about the uses, resources and functions of the tank ecosystem, and to check if it is reflected in their daily activities using the tank in consideration of it as ecosystem, we carried out a test of it in a survey.

‐ 63 ‐


The questionnaire (see chapter 6) had 20 questions to allow the interviewers and translators to complete it in 45 minutes approximately trying to avoid that the people could get tired and decrease the quality of the answers if they would have been longer. The survey were done with an stratified sample of 109 persons with the same categories of free listing and pile sort methods.

The questionnaire was structured in four parts. The first part was dedicated to personal data of the informant, collecting also some variables that can influence the social perception of the people. They were the village (the different characteristics of each village can influence the perception), the surface of landholding (as an expression of the wealth and the social position), the education, the participation or not in trainings of NGOs and in the formal social groups of the village (SHGs, gramma sabha), the participation in NREGS (National Rural Employment Guarantee Scheme), the caste and the age. As well we collect some data about each household, like type of house (grass with roof), livestock population, drinking water facilities (tap and pipeline, hand pump, pipeline in the street…), well availability at home and type of stove (firewood or gas) and the distance from the house to the kulams, drinking water and tanks. All these data is related with the tank ecosystem and their use, knowledge and perception and can influence them.

The second part (1‐11 questions) was focused in the knowledge of the people. In this part we tried to select questions that gather all the functions, uses and resources of the tank. But the most important was to know if the villagers are able to identify the ecological processes that relate the different elements of the ecosystem (percolation, dissolution and transport of nutrients between compartments, trees ecological functions) and the multiple uses of the tank ecosystem (use of death storage) (questions 1,2, 4, 5,6). Other important aspect to know was the relation of the village with the tank through uses, practices, maintenance of it and cultural functions (3,7,8,9,10,11).

The third part (12‐18 questions) was focused in to check if their knowledge was correlated with the use and if the people are really doing some different uses of the tank. The fourth part was dedicated to evaluate the importance that the villagers give to the water tank as a decentralized system of water management (19 question) and their consequences for the village and to ask about the opinion of the informant about the current management and its potentialities (20 question).

The answers of the people with the kind of questions that we used were difficult to evaluate and we establish a criteria to evaluate and resume it in two, three or four possible answers. In general, the punctuation goes from 0 to 3, where 0 means that they don’t know or they did completely wrong the answer, and 3, what means the opposite, a very good answer. The intermediary answers were those ones with only part of the answer or not accompanied with a reason or justification. There are here a possible bias in the evaluation of the interviewer and also in the way of expressing the answer (and its translation) that can hidden the really knowledge of the interviewed

There are some questions whose answer are only divided in three possibilities (0, 1 and 2), and some questions whose possible answers were only “yes” or “not”, and “I know” or “I don’t know”, that are represented by 1 and 0 respectively.

‐ 64 ‐


General biases and limitations of the methods

The present research tries to collect some quantitative data about the social perception about water tanks as ecosystems. This subject of study needs to be evaluated beyond the quantitative data, and the qualitative data collected through the other methods (focus groups, open interviews and participant observation) become necessary to understand the quantitative data because perception is a concept impossible to quantify. In the surveys, then, trying to avoid some reductionism of the quantitative data was necessary to get an impression of the general perception of interviewed people. Here and in the methods themselves the biases appear.

These three methods can have some biases mainly systematic biases done when the potential mistakes in the information are influenced by the way (the system used) to collect it pushing it to some result unintentionally.

The first possible bias in the present study is the bias of selection of the population interviewed. It appears when you select some people of some categories that are not really representative or is only representative of some sub‐kind within it. For example maybe the landless people considered are more diverse than we consider at the beginning and then the results about perception of this group and also all the population can be distorted.

Other important bias is the interviewer bias that use to appear in the evaluation of the answers in the questionnaire and the way to explain the questions and help in case of trouble in the understanding among the informant and the interviewer. It is related and appears at the same time of the translation bias that consists in the way of interpretation and also an unintentionally confirmation (or non‐neutrality) bias that means to keep in mind the important things that confirms your hypothesis and the expectant results. The confirmation bias is also present, of course, in the way of asking of the interviewer. It is important also to mention here a bias that arises when the respondent is surrounded of people that tries to help him or her to answer the expectant answer. Sometimes the presence of people don’t allow also to the people to be really sincere because a social pressure.

Finally the complacency bias might be present if the people say the expectant answer that confirms our hypothesis in spite of answering the really one that they think, with the intention to be more helpful or to look right and aware and conscientious of the subject.

Feed back reciprocating with the villagers: Closing meeting

The last interaction with the villagers was a closing meeting that has the following objectives:

⋅ To share the main results of the surveys and the qualitative information with the community

⋅ To receive some critics from the villagers participation and generate a reciprocity that origin some positive discussion about the current status and management of the water tanks ecosystem

‐ 65 ‐


⋅ To help the villagers to be conscious on the importance given by themselves to the tank ecosystem

⋅ To take leave with a warm goodbye and to be thankful with the villagers for all the help

The meeting consist in a presentation with a projector while taking some refreshment and snacks. It was beneficial for both, the villagers and the researchers because it was the last opportunity to learn from each other for both them.

‐ 66 ‐

5

Description of cases of study

Introduction: study area description In this chapter we will explain the main characteristics of the study cases, in order to have a clear idea of the ecosystem considering the society and the environment. First the main characteristics of each village are described, after the tanks ecosystems, and finally the management of them. All this information has been collected with the aim to know the villages (from an ethnographic understanding) and to understand which are the factors that influence the perception of the local people about tank ecosystem.

The environmental variables are very similar in the two villages, so they will be explained in the following part, in a common subchapter, before to explain the concrete characteristics of each village, as general introduction to the area.

Location Endiyur and Attur, the study cases villages, belong to the Marakkanam block (56 village Panchayat) in the Tindivanam Taluk (136 village Panchayat), which is in the Viluppuram district of Tamil Nadu. The study cases are two neighbour villages, located 5 km from the nearest city, Tindivanam, and connected each other through the Marakkanam Union road (see figure 5).

TindivanamTindivanam

PondicherryPondicherry

‐ 67 ‐


TTiinnddiivvaannaamm

AAttttuurr

EEnnddiiyyuurr

Figure 5. Sketch of the study cases location

To see the location of the villages with more accuracy see annex 1.

Environmental description of the area

Physic environment (Climate, Topography-Geology-Edafology, Hydrology, Hydrogeology)

Climate

The area of study is located at 30 km from the coast, and the climate is not very temperate by the influence of the sea between summer season and winter season, and between day and night. The mean temperatures varies from 20 ºC in winter season at dawn, to 37 ºC in summer season at midday. In May and June, temperatures may arise more than 45 ºC during the day. There is only one rainy season during the year, because the Southwest monsoon doesn’t arrive to this area normally. Total precipitation during the year is set in 1129.8 mm (at the rainguage station of Tindivanam located at 3 km from our area of study), but the rainy days are concentrated only during the rainy seasons, so the rest of the year it is very dry (see graphic 3).

‐ 68 ‐


05

10152025303540

Jan

Feb Mar Apr May

Ju

n Jul Aug

Sep

Oct Nov

Dec

ºC

0

50

100

150

200

250

300

mm

Total rainfall Min Temperature Max temperature

Graphic 3. Climate diagram. Source: own elaboration based on data from PWD. Ground water perspectives.

A profile of Villupuram District, Tamilnadu,. 2002.

Geology

The area of study is covered by hard rock formations, whose implications in the hydrogeological dynamics will be explained later. The lithology of our area of study is made of charnockite crystalline rocks of Archaean age. Charnockite is a series of foliated metamorphosed igneous rocks of wide distribution and great importance in India, Ceylon, Madagascar and Africa. The charnockite series includes rocks of many different types, some being acid and rich in quartz and microcline, others basic and full of pyroxene and olivine, while there are also intermediate varieties corresponding mineralogically to norites, quartz‐norites and diorites. In our area, these rocks are highly metamorphosed and have been subjected to very severe folding, crushing and faulting.

Topography

The technical definition of the characteristics of this area is pediplain. Pediplain is an arid landscape of little relief that is occasionally interrupted by the presence of scattered inselbergs (residual hills of rocky accumulations). There are not inselbergs inside our area of study, but in Vitalupuram, the village in the northen border of Endiyur and Attur, there is an inselberg with a big temple at the top, which is visible from everywhere in our villages.

The light differences in heights in the topography, because is a very flat area, are used perfectly to drive the water to the desired directions. For example, the catchment area with the supply canals are situated lightly upper than the tank bed, and the nanjai lands irrigated by the eri are situated no more than two meters below the sluice level. All the irrigation canals use these minimal differences in height to drive the water by gravity to the different lands.

In our tanks of study, the height of Periya eri in Endiyur above the sea level is 42 meters, and Chinna eri is at 33 meters high, so the average of the inclination of the terrain between them is about 1%, because the distance between them is 910 meters. The height of Aranguti eri in Attur respect to the seal level is 96.9 meters, Attur Union

‐ 69 ‐


eri is situated at 71.5 meters, and there is a distance between them of 1500 meters, so there is an slope of the terrain of only 1.73%.

Edaphology

In general, the dominant type of soil in the area is “red loamy”, and the moisture measured on the 20 of May, in the hottest and driest period, is about 20 % in the centres of the tanks. Also all our tanks have a neutral pH of 7, but soil texture vary inside the four different tanks of our cases of study, what makes that the population in this area is using differently the tanks according to their specific soil properties. Inside all tanks, there is an accumulation of silt in the centres, as we explained before, which is generally made of black clay, because it is very rich in organic matter. This upper layer of clay permits to decrease the infiltration rate of the surface water of the tank. When the villagers remove the first layer of clay there is a second layer of another material, which can be loam or sand, and the infiltration rate in these areas increases.

Specifically, in Aranguti eri, most of the tank bed is covered by black clay, but in one side of the tank, next to the catchment area, soil is conformed by sand. Alluvial soil is located in the catchment area, and more calcareous soil next to the bund, inside the tank bed. It is very important to say that there is a red clay area besides the tank, of which soil is currently exploited for the production of bricks.

In Attur Union Tank the dominant soil is loam, and there is also a lot of lime. There is a thin layer of clay at the top, which has been removed in some parts due to the NREGA desiltation works. The silt in this tank is characterized by a loamy texture and high contents in lime, so this silt is specially appreciated in other areas for fertilizing.

The Periya eri in Endiyur is mainly distinguished by the sandy properties in general. It has a layer of silt in the centre too, which is formed by a thick layer of black clay.

And finally, there is sandy loam texture in the central area of Chinna Eri, but the dominant texture is loam. The only part of the tank conformed by clay soil is the western corner.

Hydrology

All the studied tanks are part of the Kalluvelli watershed, which is very closed to the Bay of Bengal, in the Indian Ocean (see Figure 5). This watershed is formed by more than 300 tanks, streams and other water bodies, apart from the enormous (15 km long and 8 km wide) Kalluvelli swamp. Many of these water bodies are interconnected, but there is not any permanent river in this watershed, and the final destinations of all surplus waters are the Kalluvelli Swamp. The surface water in this watershed doesn’t reach the sea by any important stream.

Hydrogeology

The area is considered “rocky zone”, a hard rock formation of charnockite. The groundwater occurs under water table conditions, but the intensity of weathering, joint, fracture and its development is very poor, so the groundwater potential is very low. The only possible deposit of water inside this lithology is in the space found in the fissures of the rock, what means that there is very little water storage capacity. For

‐ 70 ‐


example, the Specific Yield of the aquifer in this lithology is 0.8% to 2.5%, and in alluvium zone the aquifer is set in 7.2%. Another characterisctic of the rocky zone is that it is very difficult for the villagers to dig wells due to the high hardness of the material and the high economical cost of it.

Biotic environment. Vegetation There are three clear differentiated areas of vegetation in the tank ecosystem: the non‐irrigated cultivable land, the ayacut, and the different parts of the tank device. This section is focused in the main species which are growing in our study tanks, distinguishing among the vegetation of the bund and of the tank bed. The kind of vegetation of the bund are trees, lianas and bushes tangled among them difficulting the access. It is common to see trees like vellikatan (Prosopis juliflora) (which sometimes grows in the tank bed and commontly is used for firewood and ), neem tree (Azadirachta indica) a sacred medicinal tree, and palm trees (Borassus flabellifer). Some plants of Jatropha gossipyfolia have been planted in the bund with the purpose of extracting the the oil from the fruit to use it as fuel. The foreigner bush Lantana wightiana is very abundant in the bund area. This invasive weed is threatening the biodiversity of tanks and other ecosystems in Tamil Nadu.

When the tank is empty, two areas of vegetation can be differentiated. The deepest part of the tank near the sluice, which is the area that remains more time flooded and is the part that use to be desilted, is usually covered by crept vegetation that have different strategies to adapt both, drought and flood, like Coldenia procumbens, short life cycle plant, or Cyperus rotundus and Glinus lotoides that remain durment when the environmental conditions are not favourable. In the rest of the area of the tank bed the most abundant specie is Saccharum sponteneum, which is dominant in clay and sandy soils. This is a perennial specie that resists the rainy season and it is present when the tank has water. Other perennial specie present is the Ipomea pes‐tigridis that is considered as weed because sometimes infest the tank beds without allowing the growth of the grass for the roof and to graze of the cattle (which is not the case of our tanks). However it has good ecological functions that have already been mentioned. In the tank bed and in the bund there are also some plants with medicinal properties well known by the local people, like the Yerikan chedi (Calotropis gigantea).

The tank with the most biodiversity of plants was the Endiyur Periya Eri, maybe due to the recent rehabilitation made by the NGO Palmyra. So, we decided to evaluate the biodiversity of the Endiyur Periya Eri in the area that was near the sluice through Simpson’s Biodiversity Index and Shannon Biodiversity’s Index (H) (see chapter 4). The dominant specie found is Glinus lotoides and the Simpson’s Biodiversity Index (D) value of this tank is 3,15 and Equitativity (E) 0.35. It means a medium biodiversity. The low equitativity found means that all the species do not have the same evenness.

For further information about the vegetation of the study cases tanks see the annex 3.

First case of study: Endiyur Endiyur is a semi urban village with an interesting socio‐economical context due to their grown in population and in urbanized area during the last decade. There are two

‐ 71 ‐


non‐system eris (tank in tamil) in Endiyur, and from 1999 to 2006 one NGO called Palmyra helped the villagers to rehabilitate them and to form the Water Users Association (WUA). There were two WUA, one for each Eri, called Chinna Eri Sangam (small tank association in tamil) and Periya Eri Sangam (big tank association in tamil). They were formed by women and men and they were organized also like the micro credits financial groups (women and men separately at this time). When Palmyra left the villages, the two WUA stopped their works.

On the outskirts of Endiyur there is one temple, called Murugan, and surrounding it there is a little village which is still being part of Endiyur, but its inhabitants seem to have less purchasing power than the Endiyur average. Most of them are landless agricultural labourers or they are working in poultry farms, but they belong to the same caste than the most of people in Endiyur. This aspect is underlined to take into account and to show the social and structural differences in the village.

In the following paragraphs it is described the history, demography, economical activities, administrative organisations, social groups, natural resources and tank ecosystems (physical) and their management (social).

Endiyur

1991 2001 Total area 406 ha 96 97 98

Total Population 2683 3033 Cultivated land 315 ha

Male 1360 1523

Female 1323 1510 Nanjai 63 ha

Households 600 665

Punjai 252 ha Caste groups99

vanniar (MBC) 95% Uncultivated land 4 ha

Dobi (MBC), Ambattan (MBC) 5% Common land 86 ha

Assari (MBC), Muslim (BC)

Type of landholding Size of the land Number of households

% of population

96 Census of India. 1995. Census of India 1991, Tamil Nadu, Delhi: Office of the Registrar General. 97 Census of India. 2002. CensusInfo India 2001 v.1,CD format. Delhi: Registrar General and Census Commissioner 98 The rest of the information of the chart is coming from an interview with the VAO of Endiyur the 18th of April of 2007 99 Enterview with Endiyur nattamais the 15th of March of 2007

‐ 72 ‐


Big landowners > 5 acres 75 10 100

Small landowners 2.5‐5 acres 300 42

Marginal farmers < 2.5 acres 200 31

Landless ‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐ 120 17

Ayacut Tanks Waterspread area

Number of sluices

Periya eri 34 ha 41 ha 1

Chinna eri 13 ha 21 ha 1

Table 6. General data of Endiyur.

Village history The major events like floods and droughts, and the main economical and social changes along the time are maybe the most important elements of the history of one village related to the water tank in rural India, because they are affecting to agriculture and the village development.

The bund of the Periya eri in Endiyur has broken twice from the oldest people in the village could remember. There were in 1966 and 1981 due to the heavy rains, and the village was flooded. The flood of 1966 was the major flood that they could remember and eroded the entire village destroying the main roads and the transport facilities.

In 1980 there was a big drought season and the government had to bring drinking water to the village by trucks. After that government gave funds to build the firsts public hand pumps in the village. Before the 80s there were no pumps of any type, people just extracted groundwater from wells or from natural fountains.

2004 was latest driest recent year remembered, they didn’t have during Kaartikai to Masi (from the middle of December to the middle of March), so they couldn’t cultivate, they also had scarcity of drinking water.

To understand the development of the village it is necessary to know about the evolution of power supply and its relation with the subsides of the Government to the agriculture power supply by groundwater extraction for agriculture. The first electric motor arrived to the village at the beginning of 1960s101, and at the end of 1970s arrived the first subsides of the government from DMK Party and finally in 1985 started the current policy of subsides for the power supply for agriculture purpose102. It arrived at the same time of the submergible pump availability for farmers.

100 1 acre: 0.3 ha 101 See: Prahbakar, I. and Olivia, A. 2006. Study that shows similar results of that field information. 102 Interview with the electricity officer made on 26th of april in the Electricity office of Manur, Attur and Endiyur, Tamil Nadu Electricity Board

‐ 73 ‐


Going back to time, the first electric motor for the pumps of the wells arrive with the Green Revolution that begun with programs from the Central Government under Indira Gandhi (1955‐1960), to mitigate the scarcity of food in the country, because India was not capable of producing enough food to feed its own population.

The Green Revolution increased the amount of artificial fertilizers in the village, like AIA Uram or Sundari Uram. However, some people of the village tried to preserve the traditional manures (as for example the silt coming from the tank, or the neem cake, made with leaves of the neem tree), and they were aware about the potential negative impacts of the artificial fertilizers to the environment. It is shown with the remarks of the elder people of the village that think that the artificial fertilizers are bad for health . 103

In this period large canals, pipes and dams were constructed and there were education programs about how farmers should cultivate the land. The traditional types of rice, which needed 6 month of growing, like Samba, Ponni, Senkar, Vezha Undal, Sengalpattu Serumani, Kuthiraival Serumani, where changed for others of fast growth. The new types of rice introduced were: IR8, Adudurai 36, Adudurai 39, Ponmani and Kundu Ponmani.104

New crops, like coconuts and sugarcane were added also. The factory of sugar gave for free sugarcane seeds and fertilizers to the farmers who wanted to cultivate it. So we can conclude that the Green Revolution was an inflection point in the history of the village.

To finalize the description of the main characteristics of the village we underline that Endiyur is a semi urban village, having then some facilities that are not present in Attur (Ur and Colony).

Demography The total population of 2001, last data available, was 3033, 1523 were male and 1510 female. In summer season there is a seasonal migration because there are less work due the water scarcity, so about 500 people go to other towns within a radius of 200 km. They use to work in road construction, sugarcane harvesting, cutting casuarina, breaking stones, etc. In the last 10 years, about 25 families have migrated permanently to Endiyur.

Caste groups The most of the people living in the village belong to one category of the Government classification of castes called Most Backward Castes (MBC). The 95% of the population who is living in Endiyur nowadays is vanniar or kounder, the 5% of the population is divided in three more castes, Dobi (also called Vannan or Egali) that are washers of clothes, Assari (also called Auchari and some of them are Backward Castes, BC) that work as carpenters, the Ambattan the caste of barbers, and finally the Muslim (Bacward Castes, BC) with only two families.

103 Information collected by a Focus group with the Elder people of the village 104 Information collected by a Focus group with the Elder people of the village

‐ 74 ‐


Economical activities The main occupation of the working population in Endiyur is agriculture (see table 6) and the most of the people (nearly 80% of the total population) have land. The people who have a small piece of land and the landless people are working as agricultural labourers in other lands or as daily labourers in road construction works, smashing stone, building activities or tree cutting. The group of landless people working only as daily labourers (agricultural or road construction) is formed by approximately the 15% of the population. Also there are some people who have private grocery shops or hotels and other occupations that constitute only the 5% of the people.

Agricultural practices and crops Agricultural practices and crops carried out in punjai and nanjai lands are very important to understand the economy and the village society. Also is necessary to know the main implications of the current agriculture for the ecosystem conservation in terms of water consumption and potential pollution of the fertilizers and pesticides.

The main crops in nanjai lands are paddy, sugarcane, banana, casuarina and cotton. The highest consumption of water is done by banana, paddy and sugarcane. In punjai the typical crops are groundnut or peanut, black gram (Vigna mungo, a pulse), ragi or finger millet (Eleusine coracana), cotton, chili, kovakai (Coccinia cordifolia, a plant that produces a small red fruit) and some species of flowers. When there is heavy rain and the water level in the wells is high, the farmers with land in punjai also cultivate some higher water consumer crops (like paddy, sugarcane and banana) . 105

In the annex 4. the reader can consult the concrete information about the crops cultivated in nanjai and punjai and a seasonal calendar with the agricultural practices and the crop season of each variety. In Masi and Panguni the harvest of rice is finished, and after selling it, farmers have the highest revenue. It is related also with the temple festivals: in Cittirai, the moment of the year with more income available to the farmers, is when the most important festivals and the marriages are celebrated. It shows how the social life of the village is closely related with the crop calendar and with the tank ecosystem.

The farmers started using artificial fertilizers since the green revolution106 (for instance: commercial UREA and ammonium (N), Superphosphate (P) Potass (K) NPK complex), and they use it one month after the plantation of paddy and sugarcane.

The natural manures were used more before, but still now they are used for some farmers (kakbung, panchakavya, products of vermiculture, neem cake), usually these farmers have received training about organic farming from NGOs. Nowadays the use of natural manures and silts is decreasing because the artificial fertilizers, sold by private companies, are cheaper. The silt is applied by farmers before plantation every three years because its effects remain in the soil along this period of time. The silt will be explained deeper in the section dedicated to the natural resources of the eris.

105 Information collected from Focus group discussion with five farmers with land in punjai 106 Information collected from individuals interviews to farmers with land in nanjai.

‐ 75 ‐


The silt is used less than before but this topic is discussed with the results in chapter 6. Examples of pesticides used by farmers are Monocrotophos107, Endosulfan, or Lindane (BHC) . 108

Cattle rearing Cattle rearing is other important economical activity. Some landless people are dedicated mainly to rear goats and cows to sell the milk and the juniors for meat production. The goat dung is also sold as manure to landowners109, who use as manure in their land.

The shepherds bring their cattle to graze in the Eri, in the fallow lands and in the lands after harvesting. Sometimes they go to the odais.

They can go with their cattle to the eri in summer season, after the man who took the auction has harvested all the grass. If one animal is found in the tank bed before the grass has been harvested it is “arrested” (there is one small building in the common land of the village for this purpose), until the owner pay the fine. Shepherds also use the eri for drinking water for the cattle and also for bathing the goats.

The most of the shepherds are also working as daily labourers, and to have cattle is not exclusive for shepherds, the villagers use to have some cows or goats (maybe one or two per family) for self‐consumption of milk. However, there are three milk societies (to sell and buy milk), one is from the government and the other two are private, but people also sell milk between themselves. People from other villages, like Attur, are coming to sell their milk to Endiyur societies.

There are also seven poultry farmers living in Endiyur, but the poultry farms are outside Endiyur. The medium size of the farms is about 7000 chickens per farm.

Administrative organisation and institutions

Village Panchayat Endiyur Village Panchayat 110 manages two hamlet villages: Endiyur and Gurunammapettai (and Gurunammapettai Colony), and belongs to Marakkanam Union Panchayat. There are 6 wards, 3 wards in Endiyur Village and 2 wards in Gurunammapettai Ur and 1 in Gurunammapettai Colony.

Due to the Reservation Policies of the Government the president of Panchayat in Endiyur must be a woman. But everybody knows that if they vote to the woman the

107 Monocrotophos is a non‐specific systemic insecticide and acaricide and organophosphorus (OP) insecticide specially toxic for birds and moderately for fish, see: http://www.pan‐uk.org/pestnews/actives/monocrot.htm and http://pmep.cce.cornell.edu/profiles/extoxnet/metiram‐propoxur/monocrotophos‐ext.html108 Lindane (BHC) and Endosulfan are examples of persistent organochlorines pesticides, see: http://www.epa.gov/pesticides/factsheets/neurotoxicdata.htm109 One tractor of goat dung costs 500‐600 Rs, information collected with a Focus group with landless people (part of them shepherds). 110 For readers that don’t know about Indian Administrative Service Organization, the Village Panchayat is the most local level of the Panchayati Raj Institutions that is in charge of the village facilities administration.

‐ 76 ‐

http://www.pan-uk.org/pestnews/actives/monocrot.htm

http://pmep.cce.cornell.edu/profiles/extoxnet/metiram-propoxur/monocrotophos-ext.html

http://www.epa.gov/pesticides/factsheets/neurotoxicdata.htm


real president would be the husband, even in the official adverts for the elections the face of the man was the only face. At present, the man is taking the charge 100% in practise, the wife is still doing only housewife works, despite of having the enough integrity and knowledge about the village to be the president.

The most important duties of the Panchayat are to maintain the village infrastructures, like repairing and installing the pipelines, hand pumps and overhead water tanks ensuring the drinking water supply, street lights and power supply.

Regarding to the financial aspects, the Panchayat receives apart from the money allotted from the government to accomplish, in theory, their duties; it receives some amount of money from the auctions sale as will be explained in detail in the tank management section.

The Panchayat convokes once per month an assembly of the entire village, known over all India as gramma sabha. There, the villagers discuss about the last policies of the current Panchayat and after that about the things that the Panchayat is planning to do. They discuss mainly about the duties of Panchayat, but sometimes there are also some discussions about the tank management . 111

Whoever who wants can participate and discuss about the general problems of the village so, some social groups of the village are represented in these meetings. The Women Self Help Group (WSHG) registered in the Marakkanam Union Panchayat send to the meeting one or two members, but other social groups are not use to be represented. Neither of the groups pf the WUA, female and male, send representatives, but their members can go as villagers.

Nattamais In Endiyur there are two nattamais that still have a strong manager role of the village although being an informal traditional institution non‐recognized by the government.

Their main duty is to maintain the temples of the village and to organize the festivals.

nattamais are involved also in the management of all natural resources in the village and the auctions of the resources when the situation arises: kulams, the tamarind trees of the roads and the resources from the eri: different kind of trees, fish, oil for biodiesel and grass. nattamais are also judges, they use to solve conflicts among the villagers and can put penalties and fines of 500 Rs. approximately for actions like cutting the trees or encroachment112. Both, the money from the fines and the money from the auctions are used for funding the temple festivals. If there is deficit for the festival, they collect money from the villagers. If there is some money left, they put it into a common fund for necessary investments in the village, for example, to pay new teachers for the school when there are not enough teachers and to the school maintenance. About the financial aspects of the temple common fund is important to underline that, when there is a major repair work in the eri, nattamais collect money from all the people in

111 Information collected through participant observation and informal interviews in the Gramma sabha. 112 Information collected from Focus group discussion with five farmers with land in punjai

‐ 77 ‐


the village. If there is a minor repair work, nattamais only collect money from the farmers of the ayacut.

The nattamais are sharing their duties and one of them is making the financial duties (treasurer) and the other one is doing the administrative part of the temple management. The person in charge of the nattamai role doesn’t receive any wage for this; they just are nattamais for prestige (and power) in town. They can have any job or richness, but they must belong to the vanniar and kounder caste. Every 14th of April, the first day of the year in the Tamil Calendar, in Cittirai (from the middle of April to the middle of May), they show the accounts of the common fund to the rest of people (only men), and new nattamais are chosen for the next year.

There are five groups (kottu in Tamil) of vanniar caste contributors to the temple festivals (like sponsors). Each group is a kith or lineage group and it is formed by 100 families approximately. The nattamais are chosen every year among the representatives of two of these five groups, taking into account that the same group cannot have his representative being nattamai for two consecutive years. So, the next year the nattamais will be the representatives of two different groups.

There is a sixth group of contributors to the temple formed by Assari Caste (carpenters), but they cannot become nattamai. They work as labourers in the festival and they receive wage from the vanniar Groups for it, but they do not have rights to give their opinion in the temple management. The other castes, Dobi (washing clothes) and Ambattan (barbers) are not involved in the temple management.

Fifty years ago, only one nattamai was ruling in Endiyur, and belonged to only one family because the charge was hereditary. Now, nattamais in Endiyur change every year, they are not representing any political party, and they work for the community, with responsibility of common properties.

Obeying the orders of nattamais there are two thottis, and they are always from an SC (from Attur Colony). The thotti is the responsible of announcing the village meeting with trumpets and drums (these instruments belong to the temple). They also bury or burn the death people. Before, the Thotti was managing also the sluice of the tank and he was the person in charge to mesure the level water of the eri and to decide about he way of sharing water. Now, in practice he does not work opening the sluice, only if the farmers want they can call him, so nanjai farmers open themselves the sluice.

The thotti receives salary and compensation from the landowners. Before, he received paddy and groundnut as wage. Nowadays the current thottis of Endiyur are very old and only one of them is working.

VAO and Talliari The Village Administrative Officer (VAO) is in charge of the government certificates, subsides and assigning the ration cards for the rural poor people. He also collects the taxes for the Revenue Department and has all the administrative information of the village. He manages the elections (IDs, candidates) and gives the pensions to people (elder people, widows, etc.).

The VAO has one assistant called Talliari. The Talliari is always belonging to SC caste (from Attur Colony and Gurunammapettai Colony). He collects the taxes of the land,

‐ 78 ‐


helps to negociate the patta concession and he informs about the programmes of the Government.

Some inhabitants of Endiyur have some confusion between him and the thotti.

Village society and social life The tank ecosystem has society and nature in continuous relationship. So, it is necessary to explain the social structure and the complex relations between several groups to understand the relation between the villagers and their development with the nature. In the next paragraphs we are going to describe the social groups of Endiyur.

The high homogeneity of caste in Endiyur does not mean that there is not existing a structured and hierarchical social life in the village. Through participant observation we could observe that, like in the most of the villages of South India, the farmers (landowners) have more social and political power due to be the richest (or the less poor) people of the small rural town. The gender also is a very important factor which determines the social position and the empowerment inside the institutions of the village. These kind of “participatory exclusion” affect the social life of every person in the village.

The farmers (specially those who have lands in nanjai) occupy the best social position, which is palpable with their better conditioned houses and basic facilities. The role and social position of the farmers are directly related according with the surface of land and with the typology of the land (punjai or nanjai). The Panchayat president, for example, is a big farmer but it is not a strict rule because the previous year, the nattamais were not big farmers.

The landless people are the poorer people of the village with a particular vulnerability due to their low wages. It is shown in their less conditioned infrastructures and houses (which at the same time are sometimes more eco‐friendly113), and their difficulty to be the highest bidders in the auctions of the resources due to their low purchasing power. This group do not use to be directly involved in the decision making, gramma sabha and tank management. Among the landless people there is some different occupations as it have already been explained (agricultural labourer, shepherd, grocery shops, barbers, carpenters…). These social groups use to live grouped together, like in the centre of the village near the main road or in the outskirts of the village, near the Murugan temple (landless agricultural labourers, marginal farmers, shepherds), and near the central play ground (big and small farmers). So, there is some social segregation in the territorial organization of the village.

Within this context the nomads appear as transitory inhabitants with the worse social and economical condition. They use to come once per year for about twenty days long to Endiyur, and to take some other resources from the eri apart from those that Endiyur villagers use to take, like birds. They also use the public hand pump wells, and use the school for their children during their period in the village.

113 Shiva, V., 2005

‐ 79 ‐


Finally, the Endiyur social description has to take into account how this social groups are related. It is explained in the following sections dedicated to the formal organizations for a social participation (political parties and self‐help groups) and also in the part of this chapter dedicated to the tanks ecosystems management (Chinna and Periya Eri).

Political parties The political parties have an important role in the social life of the village. In Endiyur the main political parties are: PMK (Pattali Makkal Katchi= Workers People Party), DMK (Dravida Munnatra Kazhagam= Dravida Development Party) and ADMK (Anna Dravida Munnatra Kazhagam= Anna Dravida Development Party), as the three most voted.

MDMK and Congress, as the two second most voted, and DMDK. Nowadays the current Panchayat belongs to the DMK political party.

We observed that there are no good relations between the different political parties of the village and it influence the social relation between the people, and between the people and the Panchayat. The WSHG that don’t belong to the same political party of the Panchayat president don’t have relations with them, for example . 114

Self-Help Groups (SHG) There are different types of Self‐Help Groups (SHG) in Endiyur. There are formed by women (WSHG and Woman Pattadar Groups, WPG), by men of any occupation (MSHG) and by farmers (FSHG) mobilised and organized with the help of some NGOs, Government, and Political parties.

There are 26 Women Self Help Group and each has twenty members always younger than forty years old. They started in 2000, and they meet twice per month to do their financial duties. The main activities of these groups are to make small savings, and to have access to microcredits. These groups are promoted by the Government, and each member has to pay Rs. 105 monthly (Rs. 100 for savings and Rs 5. for the group expenditure).

There are five Men Self Help Group with also twenty members per group of whatever occupation, that are doing the same as the WSHG, but they started later. These groups are promoted by the Political parties (DMK, PMK and DMK), and like in the WSHG, the members have to pay Rs. 105.

Now in Endiyur there are two FSHG, formed by nanjai landowners, and two WPG, with 20 women per group, being all of them nanjai landholders or wives and widows of nanjai landholders, and they are working like microcredit groups. These groups were promoted by Palmyra in its tank rehabilitation project and they are inside the WUA (see the section dedicated about NGO role in tank ecosystem management in Endiyur).

114 Information collected with open interview to the current Panchayat president husband.

‐ 80 ‐


When Palmyra left, these groups joined to political parties, different than the Panchayat (DMK). The Panchayat has no special relation with the WPG or the WSHG, although the women think that they have influence in some decisions. But the important thing, further away of having loans and saving functions, is that the women who are forming these kind of groups think that they are important as a group and they feel that they can have interesting things to say.

Other NGO called Village Community Development Society (VCDS) is organising the women and men (ten women and ten men, the president is a men and the secretary is a woman) to form a SHGs all together. This SHG is receiving trainings about natural fertilizers and some jobs as tailoring from VCDS, who is also giving loan for buying cows or bullocks.

All that groups are not formally related between them but some people is member of more than one organization at the same time.

115Natural Resources of the villageTo understand the two tanks (Chinna and Periya) is very important to know the context, a proper frame of the rest of the natural resources that Endiyur has.

The soil is, joint to the water, the most important natural resource for agriculture. The total area of the village is about 406 ha. The cultivated land is the 78% of Endiyur area, and it is divided in punjai and nanjai land (see table 6). The common land (called Poorambokku in Tamil), that really means a public land, is of 86 ha 116 which are the eris, kulams and the land around them and around the temples.

The growth of the village is threatening the nanjai lands and the poorambokku, which are decreasing the during these last years because they are very near to the centre of the village.

The poorambokku is having various classifications and depending on each classification is managed by Panchayat, Revenue Department, or P.W.D. It is used for communal purposes. There is a piece of land in the centre of the village called toppu poorambokku. Some buildings for common purpose are found in this place: veterinary, government buildings, school…The place that is not build is used for village festivals and as playground. In other parts of the village, like near the main road or the eris itself, the pooramboku is threatened by the encroachers, who take some pieces of common land to increase they private crop.

Other important resources for the village are the tamarind trees (pulia maram in Tamil) which are growing along the roads (inside and outside the village). This trees are not a resource related with the tank, but the way of managing them is similar than the trees of the eri. Every village has the part of the road that is in front of the surrounding area of the village, so each village is in charge to do the auction of the trees that belong to his part of the road. The Village Panchayat pay the usufruct rights to the Marakkanam Union Panchayat and then, with nattamais, they do they auction of each tree and the profit is going to the common fund of the village and to the temple festivals.

115 Information collected with PRA exercise and Natural Resources mapping. 116 The information about the areas was given by the VAO in an interview the 18 of April of 2007. th

‐ 81 ‐


The auction is convoked between January and March, when the fruit is mature. Whoever who wants can go to the auction and get the usufruct rights of the fruits of the trees that year. The average of price is about 1,000 Rs for each tree auctioned, this means that they are an important source of income for the village, maybe the most important. This year they collected Rs. 58,000 with the tamarind trees auction, six times more than the benefits of the natural resources of the tank. Usually the benefits are surrounding 1 lakh.

The people who get the auction of the tamarind trees have different occupation (farmers, agricultural labourer, building daily labourers…).There are many stakeholders interested in the auctions although they have not a high revenue occupation. Sometimes the people take the auction collectively sharing the costs and the profits. This kind of activity, however, is not profitable and rentable because the divided shares are very low.

In the annex 2 it is shown the participatory map of natural resources of the village made in a PRA exercise with the villagers.

Tank ecosystem description In the following section the tank ecosystem is described with its several elements.

Tank’s technology There are two non‐system tanks in Endiyur, the Periya Eri and the Chinna Eri (also known as Mandangal tank). Periya Eri is belonging to the PWD, and with his 34 ha it is providing water to 41 ha of ayacut. Chinna eri is smaller, with only 13 ha and an ayacut of 21 ha, so it belongs to the Marakkanam Union Panchayat.

The water of both eris is available from the middle of Purattasi to Thai (from October to the middle of February). From Margali (from the middle of December) the water is decreasing.

The three supply canals (odais) that are crossing the punjai lands of the catchment area of the Periya Eri are coming from Vithalapuram, its neighbour village in the north. There are trees growing around and along these canals. The surplus weir and the canal connected with it, which was repaired in 2006 by workers from NREGA, are going from Periya Eri to Chinna Eri, and from Chinna Eri joints with a canal that comes from Attur (up‐stream tank) and goes to Molasur (down‐stream tank) but it has been used only three times in the past thirty years.

There is some encroachment in the north of Chinna Eri made by landowners, is not a big problem as it is in other villages. Sometimes the nattamai can fine the encroachers if the village people (having land or not) have any complaints. In Endiyur these fines are between 500‐1000 Rs/acre it is a high amount of money in comparison with the Government land tax: 50 Rs/ punjai acre or 60 Rs/nanjai acre.

The Eri sangams don’t have any right and either authority and respect to remove the encroachers from the tank bed.

Each eri has one sluice strengthened with cement by Palmyra, also the irrigation canals from Periya Eri have been strengthened with cement by Palmyra. Before was the thotti

‐ 82 ‐


who was opening and closing the sluice, now the nanjai farmers are who open and close the sluice whenever they need. The water is allocated by time, how further will be the lands how longer will be the time that the sluice will be open.

Other water bodies: functions and uses The rest of water bodies are under Panchayat Union control, but in practice they are maintained by the Panchayat president and nattamais. However, normally they do not do any maintaining action.

Kulams, (little pond for multiple purpose) are used by village peole for: cattle drinking and washing, washing clothes and some years ago for fish, but not for irrigation. The most of them are dry most part of the year, except Kothayan Kulam which is next to Chinna Eri. In past (before 1995), there was a strict prohibition of polluting the drinking water from the kulams (then ooranis), so, for example it was forbidden to wash clothes, now there is no control and the water is too polluted for drinking purpose, that was the case of Nalla Thani Kulam (in Tamil means “Good Water kulam”).

Murugam Kulam is recent and it was constructed 20 years ago, when a shepherd with cows grazing in the area discovered that there was water coming out from the ground. It was used for drinking water (oorani), taking the water from a well built inside. Now is polluted like the others, and they don’t use it anymore for drinking purpose. It has a well in the middle with some little fishes.

In the Kothayan Kulam one person put Lotus plants for aesthetic purpose. Due to this, they stopped fishing in the kulam last year (2006).

The Kothaiyan Kulam and Nalla Thani Kulam are associated with the temple and children use them to take baths, although is forbidden to do it.

There is one kuttai, for waste water storage near Chinna Eri. It has water from the overflows and rain water, it has recharging purpose for surrounding wells.

Drinking water In 1995, the Tamil Nadu Water Supply and Drainage (TWAD) built a round well (16m depth, 4m diameter) at the north and inside of the Periya Eri and Chinna Eri. There is not direct contact between the water of the Eri and the water from the well then it is protected partially from the pollution of the water from the eri by the substrat’s filtration. The water goes through a pipe from the wells to the overhead tank in the middle of Endiyur and Murugan, to ensure the proper pressure of water.

Groundwater In 1985 started the Government subside for the electricity used for the agriculture. The farmers who want to have electricity for free in their wells need to show several legal documents in application (Sita (map of their own property), Arangal (area of the land), Patta (landholding certificate), and land tax receipt), and to take one of the four options of the scheme. The first option is to make the request and after wait during 20 or 25 years to receive the power supply. The second option is to pay 10,000 Rs and wait for 5 years. The third option is to pay 25,000 Rs and wait for 3 years. The last one is to pay

‐ 83 ‐


50,000 Rs and within three moths receipt the line. People who have not line is extracting the groundwater with motors of diesel or querosene . 117

Nowadays there are 208 lines in Endiyur for wells while the domestic lines (which don’t have subsidies) are 650.

The exact number of wells is very difficult to know exactly and the different sources of information do not have consensus. Usually there are 1‐2 wells per owner, according to his purchasing power and size of the land. For example per 10 acres (4 ha) there could be 3‐4 wells, for 5 acres (2 ha) and below 1‐2 wells. Only few people do not have wells, but is possible to cultivate without wells some crops, like groundnut or gingilly. The zone is a rocky area, so having borewells is more difficut, because of the high perforation costs, than having openwells, which are the more common. Despite this, there are few farmers who have borewells which depth between 15 and 20 meters in 2005.

If somebody has to buy the water for all the season, he will pay with the 1/3 of his crop to the well owner. If the water is required only for a short time then he will pay with cash (50‐100 Rs per hour).

The well water is available from Purattasi to Panguni (October to April) approximately and the water table is normally highest in Kaartikai (between November and Desember). In Cittirai (between April and May) the water table reach the lower level. Due to they are closer to the eri, the nanjai wells have water for more long time (1‐2 month more) than the wells of the punjai lands located further from the tank and in higher lands.

Natural resources description Now there are not trees inside both beds of the eris in Endiyur, because Palmyra remove them to make the rehabilitation works in the eri. Palmyra asked for permission first to the leaders of the village.

Now there are only palm trees (Borassus flabellifer) and in the bund of Periya eri and also small plants in the bund to produce oil like lubricant and biodiesel (Jatropha curcas). The liquor, toddy, production from the palm nuts is other source of income. But this production is illegal since 2005, when the Tamil Nadu Government prohibited this practice. Selling the palm nuts and the palm leaves it is possible to get an amount of benefits surrounding Rs. 150.

In the bund of both eris it is possible to find, as it has already been explained, neem trees or vela in tamil (Azadirachta indica), vellikattan or karuvella maram (Prosopis juliflora) and kati karuvelli (Acacia nilotica) common trees used as firewood. There are also important medicinal plants like tulasi (Ocimum sanctum) or nocchi (Vitex negundo) as examples. Before, the villagers used their own plants in their garden to make natural manure, but now they also use the trees in the tank and in the bund. They cannot cut the trees but they can use it for medicinal purpose (neem tree) and for the fruits (palm tree).

117 Information collected by an interview with the electricity officer made on 22nd of April of 2007 in the Electricity office of Manur, Attur and Endiyur, Tamil Nadu Electricity Board

‐ 84 ‐


In the annex 3 there is a detailed list about the plants and trees species that is possible to find in each tank indicated also some of their uses.

The fish species that nowadays are more common are the carps, fishes from the cyprinidae family. The fishermen introduce veral, fresh water fishes and food (cow dung and paddy tuft) for them inside the eri. This specie serves as food for the fishes that they want to fish, like kandai fish, which is a local native specie. There are several species of kandai fish: kula kandai, ori kandai, velsai kandai, palman gothai… There are also other species different than kandai called gellai pi and kelty. The local people explained that this kind of fish is living in the eri thanks to the nutrients of the silt stored in the tank bed. It is also fished but sometimes is difficult to growth it very well to get a proper size for earning benefits.

The dominant specie of grass is Saccharum sponteneum called locally vellal or kuraipul and it is used specially for make the roof of the houses. A part of this specie other kind of grass, that is eaten by the cattle are Cynodon doctylon, Cyperus rotundus, Paspalum scrobiculatum and Chloris barbata. In the case of the Periya Eri, Cyperus rotundus is the dominant specie in the clay areas without presence of Saccharum sponteneum. In the foreshore area the dominant specie is Fimbristallys argentea typical in rocky and sandy soils.

Traditionally in Endiyur, in the summer season, the villagers brought the cattle to graze in the tank bed and after that they took the silt as manure. The farmers think that the silt is better than urea for growing the seeds in the first stage of the crops growing. After that stage they use artificial fertilizers. There is not any auction for the silts, each farmer goes alone and takes all the silt he needs to his land. Silt is quite costly to use, because it is necessary to pay for labourers to extract it from the eri, to transport it to the lands and to spread it on the lands. So it use to be more common to use the cow dung as manure.

The silts are taken from he lower part of the eri, because is where all the organic matter is accumulated during the year. The farmers dig to take the silt only in the upper layer, until they see there is not more good silt in the soil to use as fertilizer. Silt is used to fertilize the lands every 3 or 4 years, because it drops the nutrients to the soil slowly, and because, as people know, to apply too silt is not good for the soil. It is known that the composition of the silt varies with the tank, so people from other villages come to Endiyur to take silt from the eris because this silt fits better with their lands.

The red soil of the tank can be used as building raw material for walls, bricks and for levelling the soil of the floor of the houses. It is used also in the burial ground and in the roads. The red soil is extracted from the nearest part to the catchment area, this work is usually done with machines.

The people of Endiyur can relate some fauna with the eri: birds, snakes, snails and crabs. With the exception of birds (which are only caught by nomad people) these animals and the eggs of the birds are sometimes hunt by Endiyur people. There is not any restriction for this.

‐ 85 ‐


Description of other uses, functions and roles of the Tank Some other uses and functions of the eri have been observed or told by the village people. Some people is using the eris to wash clothes, but also the wells in the lands and the irrigation canals. The shepherds are sometimes using the eris to give water to their herds.

Children take baths in the Chinna eri in the rainy season, and also in open wells. It is forbidden to take baths in all the kulams, but children still do it hiddenly. The eris in Endiyur are not used by children as a playground in summer season, because they already have a very big space in the middle of the village for their games, but in rainy season the eri have a leisure place role.

The people who is getting married in Endiyur has a tradition which consists on doing the final cerimony of the wedding in the Kottayan kulam.

Tank management

Maintenance of tanks The Endiyur tanks, Chinna and Periya eris, were part of the 29 tanks rehabilitated by Palmyra under the “Rehabilitation project of integrated tank management systems in the Kaluvelli watershed”.

The first stage of Palmyra project was to contact with the village leaders, Panchayat and nattamais. At the beginning in the negotiation of the process of implementation they arrange to repair together the school. The village people put 25,000 Rs and Palmyra put the rest to get 1 lakh for this purpose. Then Palmyra and the villagers decided to start with the rehabilitation of the tanks.

To create two Water Users Associations (WUA) and rehabilitate the tank, Palmyra imposed a condition: the nanjai owners must pay the 30% of the cost of the rehabilitation project, and then Palmyra would pay the 70%.

Before Palmyra, the management institutions were the nattamais and the Panchayat, they were maintaining the supply channels (odais) and the eri. The WUAs were formed by nanjai farmers, having within them the nattamais as two members more because they were farmers.

The WUA started their activities with the rehabilitation and desiltation of the odais cleaning them and constructing some wholes to clean the water to decant the big stones. They planted also some trees along the supply channels but the lack of rain makes difficult the well‐growth of them.After that they repaired the sluices and the surplus weirs. Also they constructed the scales to mesure the flow of water and to know the level of water in the tank.

Palmyra also helpeds the farmers to know the main properties of their lands soil, testing it in a mobile laboratory. It helped them to know what kind of crop was proper in each soil and the amount of fertilizer necessary to grow it.

Other important contribution of the project of Palmyra was the construction of cement irrigation canals rehabilitating the previous ones.

‐ 86 ‐


Palmyra organised the Chinna eri sangam to clear the distribution channels of their ayacut to ensure the water to the tail end. The Women Pattadar Groups (WPGs) organized by Palmyra helped to repair the bund and rised the height. They remove the trees inside both eris and also the trees on the bund, included the sacred trees called neem trees, leaving only the palm trees and planting new ones instead the previous that were removed. Now there are some people in the village angry with Palmyra for this reason because the people have the perception that it became a bad thing for the ecosystem and its conservation. Some villagers said that the medicinal plants in the bund have been reduced for this reason.

During the six years of the Palmyra project, the rehabilitation activities, like desiltation, were undertaken by the WUAs, that had this kind of activities as the more important and they spent the most of this fund to the maintenance work of tanks. All that works were undertaken under the nattamai agreement.

Traditionally the desiltation activities were carried out by the farmers (nanjai and punjai118) organized with a leadership of nattamai and panchayat to go, once every two years before the rainy season, to clean the supply channels. There was not any wage for the people if they were going to participate in this activity. The benefit for them the increase of the amount of water stored in the eri and the recharge of the wells. Now, after Palmyra has left, they do the desiltation works through the NREGA. The NREGA is managed by the Endiyur Village Panchayat with the money of the Central Government administrated by the Marakanan Union Panchayat, which is allotting it for each Village Panchayat. The WUA do not take decisions related with the rehabilitation, nowadays. The desiltation and rehabilitation works are currently only carried out by the NREGA activities. The Endiyur villagers are workers beneficiaries of this poverty alleviation scheme, the 90% of them are women, and they extract only a thin layer of silt without using machines (1 feet deep) in a non‐skilled hand‐made works and put it in the bund strengthening it.

As it has already been explained before, the important repairs and desiltations have to be undertaken by the PWD (Periya Eri) and Panchayat Union (Chinna Eri) (if there is not any NGO like Palmyra mobilizing funds and community). In this procedure the Village Panchayat has an important role, in theory, contacting this government institutions but also in practice with an interesting relation with the nattamains in the Endiyur case, as it is explained in the section about the stakeholders in Endiyur tank management.

In 2005, the Union Panchayat paid a repair of the sluice, being this one the last repair done in the village.

When it is necessary a major emergency repair of the bund, ususallyin the rainy season, the nattamai and panchayat give money for that purpose and after that they ask to the PWD or Panchayat Union depending on the tank.

118 Information collected through Focus group with Nanjai farmers.

‐ 87 ‐


Natural resources management

Water

Traditionally the two tottis were the responsibles to open and close the sluice, and the water was allocated by time. Nowadays the farmers can go whenever they want to open and close the sluice. However it does not mean that there is not any rule in the water allocation. The nattamais are in charge to supervise it and to solve the potential conflict that can arise.

The distribution of water is still the same but without the work of tottis neither in the sluice nor in the field. Also there are technical improvings given by Palmyra with the cement canals construction. The farmers open the sluice and they leave it opened until their field is completely flooded with the water coming from the eri through the canals. After that they close the door of their own canal, leaving the water flows to the other canals and reach the fields of tail end farmers119. The next day the owner of the next field can open the door of their own canal during more time to leave the water to have time to arrive to his land and fill the crop. In spite of the improving of it by the cement canals, with this system of water allocation by timing and waterlogging the field, in the years of water scarcity the tail end farmers do not receive water.

If there is any conflict in the water allocation, the farmers will go to speak and discuss with the nattamai, who decide the solution and the penalties if it is the case.

The livestock drinking water and washing and the water used for domestic purpose (as washing clothes and taking bath) have free access.


The other natural resources apart from water are managed through open auctions (trees, grass and fish), and under free access regime in the case of soil and silt. Before, all these resources were open acces for all the people in the village, but some years ago nattamais decided to manage them through auctions. All the auctions are contacted from Thai to Masi (from the middle of January to the middle of March).

The nattamais play the main role in the management of the auctions. The auctions of the tank and the kulams use to be managed together with the tamarind trees auctions.

The nattamais take from the common fund of the temple the amount necessary to pay the usufruct rights to the Marakkanam Union Panchayat. Sometimes they collect this amount directly from the people dividing the amount between the five groups of temple contributors in an equal share. As the main manager institution, the nattamais give this money to the Village Panchayat which is the formal institution that has to pay to Panchayat Union (PU). Actually this money, about Rs. 2,000 last year 2006 in Endiyur case120, is not arriving to Panchayat Union, because the Village Panchayat justifies their costs and investments in the village development to the PU asking them to keep it and not pay to them.

119 The tail end farmers are the people who have the land in the end of the canal far from the eri. 120 Interview collected through open interview with Panchayat office clerk

‐ 88 ‐


The nattamai contact the auctions through the temple drums played by thotti around the village, and all the money earned is shared between the five vanniar caste contributors groups (sometimes they give some donnatives from this money to the sixth group). These groups can invest the money as they want (like giving loans among themselves, renting lands...) to increase it. Then all the money will be for the temple festivals of the village and for village facilities.

Usually the auctions take place every year in summer season, when the eri is almost dry, because this is the best moment to fish (with nets and also removing clay), to graze, to take the grass and to take the fruits and the leafs of the trees. The auction of the resources is made in the Panchayat Office in a collective meeting, everybody who has the proper purchasing power to take the auction paying the maximum amount can come and bid the price. There are not restrictions in the auctions the resource. The same person can win the auction of all resources and also the auction of one resource in both eris . 121

About the auctions management it is important to underline that when the Eri Sangams (WUAs) were working in an active way (2000‐2006), they did not interfere in the auctions and they were centred just in the rehabilitation works.

Trees

The Forest Department undertook four years ago the Social forestry in both tanks with neem tress and vellikattan, also known as karuvella maram (Prosopis juliflora). In this case the people only can take some wood but it is not allowed to cut it. Usually, once every ten or twenty years the Forest Department take an auction at district level. It is set up by the law that the people have to pay fines and penalties to the VAO if they cut the trees before the auction.

The auctionof the trees of the tank is about fruits (from the palm trees, from whose fruit is made the liquor, toddy). There are fines for the people who take fruits without permission, but it is allowed to take the leaves of the trees that are in the ground to use them as manure.

The last auction for the palm trees was 3 or 4 years ago and the amount of the auction price was Rs. 50‐100 for all the trees. The benefits of the palm trees auction for the temple fund are usually very low. Apart from the auction of the tanks there is also auction for the palm trees of Vanna Kulam, planted by Palmyra.

The panchayat plants the plants to make biodiesel (Jatropha curcas) in the bund of Periya Eri in 2006. These trees planted by Village Panchayat are given from Marakanan Union Panchayat and the benefit of this auction will go to the panchayat.

Fish

Fishes grow in both eris and normally there is auction for the fishes of both tanks. The people only can go to fish in open access, for self‐consumption regime, before the auction. Before contacting the auction panchayat and nattamais meet after Kaartikai,

121 Information collected through open interview with Ravikumar, the man who took the auction of the fish this year (march 2007) and with Erumalai who was nattamai two years before.

‐ 89 ‐


when the eri is full, to discuss if it is necessary to put small fishes in the tank. If level of water is high they put the fishes, which will increase the auction price. Otherwise, if there is less amount of water they do not put the fish and the price of the auction will be low. The auction is notified by thotti three months after putting the small fish. The auction of the fish is convoked together with the grass auction twenty days after the tamarind tree auction, always depending on the water level. This year 2006, has not been fish auction in the Periya Eri, only in the Chinna Eri, and the price has been Rs. 700, which usually is surrounding Rs. 1,000. The person who has taken the auction of the fish can introduce in the eri food for the fishes. This person also is allowed to introduce different species of fish than the local fish in the eri. He use to contract a watchman to avoid the robbery of the fish.

The profit from the fishes is very variable because it depends on the size and weight of each fish. The price of kilogram is surrounding Rs. 100. When the fishes reach a long size, because there is not water scarcity and there are enough nutrients and food for the fishes, they can earn Rs. 1 lakh (105).

There is also auction for the fish in Kottaiyan Kulam but it is not contacted every year: the last auction was four years ago.

Grass

Village panchayat manage the auction of grass in Periya Eri. In Chinna Eri there is not grass auctioned due to the desiltation activities that do not permit the growth of grass. They make auction sale of the grass in the summer season, when the grass is dry and is easy to cut it. This year, the person who took the auction paid Rs. 7,500, and sold the grass for the roofs. It is allowed to bring the cattle to graze in the eri after the auction, when all the grass has been harvested, and after the rainy season and before the auction, when the long grass auctioned is green and too hard and shrap to be eaten by the cattle.

Silt and soil

There are not restrictions to take the silt from the tank. It is an open access resource, it is a good thing for the eri because it increases the storage capacity.

To take soil (different than silt) from thetank for building purpose, it is required the permission of the nattamai.

Stakeholders in the tank management Unlike the chapter 3, dedicated to the current management of tank in general concretely in Tamil Nadu, in this section about the tank management in our study cases, we will speak mainly about the local institutions and the management at local level, organising the information little bit different to be coherent with the real local management of tanks. For this reason the first stakeholders that are explained now are the management institutions at local level ordered by the importance of their role (nattamais, Village Panchayat and WUA). After this it is explained the role of the management institutions at block and state level (Panchayat Union and PWD). Finally, the NGO Palmyra has one part dedicated due to its participation in the tank rehabilitation. It is not described the role of the users as potencial influential or

‐ 90 ‐


persuasive stakeholders to the management institutions because it is explained along all the description of Endiyur case of study.

Nattamais

50 years ago there was only one nattamai managing the village. This charge was, as has been said, hereditary, and obeying the orders and rules of nattamai there were two neerkatis, one per each sluice. Nowadays, there are two nattamais with selection procedure already explained before.

The nattamais are the main managers of the tanks and the resources associated with them and their role is very relevant because at the same time are, in spite of being an informal institution, the main authority of the village, having more duties, respect and authority.

In Palmyra project the money of the farmers’ contribution (30% of 1 lakh122) came from the temple fund.

Nattamais have relations with the Panchayat, the WUA, and in some cases with other formal organisations (like SHGs) or non‐organized villagers, users and beneficiaries of the tank, like non‐associated farmers being the central institution in the management. This role, push the nattamai to be the key stakeholder in the social cohering of management.

The nattamais have an important relation with the Panchayat in the auction contacting procedure.

The nattamais are involved in the WUA, although being a separate institution at the same time. When the WUA was implemented, the tratiditional irrigation institution was, like now, the main manager institution. The nattamais were, like now, non‐executive committee members of the WUA but all the decisions of the WUA were taken with connivance and supervision of nattamai. Like it has already said, the WUA had, during the period of Palmyra project, the dutie of rehabilitation and maintenance, and nattamai was still the manager of the auctions in cooperation with the Panchayat. At the beginning the nattamais had the main vote and took the decision although not being a member of the Executive Coomitee. Currently, the nattamais have the role of supervisors of the WUA activities but the WUA are not working in tank maintenance, only in microfinance issues.

Panchayat

Village panchayat is the formal administrative institution in the village level. His main duties and his role in Endiyur is based on the facilitation of the auction procedure paying (in theory, in practice only send a letter to justify the use of this money for the village) the usufruct rights to the PU with the money coming from the temple fund that nattamai gives to him. Other important dutie is to contact with PWD and Panchayat Union (PU) in case to need some rehabilitation of tanks.

122 1 lakh= 105= 100,000

‐ 91 ‐


Nowadays the panchayat is increasing its involvement in the tank management with the implenetation of the NREGA in both eris doing the desiltation activities.

WUAs

There are totally 72 farmers associated between both WUA formed in 2000 under the Palmyra tank rehabilitation project community mobilization. In the table x. it is shown the farmer profile of the WUAs. The Chinna eri sangam has 39 members and the Periya Eri Sangam 40. Both WUAs have an Executive Committee with five charges: president, vicepresident, secretary, joint secretary and treasurer. Palmyra also organised two microfinance groups per each WUA, because they divide women (Women Pattadar Group) and men (Farmers Self Help Group). The two WUA are working separately without cooperation and any meeting together, and they are not having any formal relation with other institutions or groups like WSHGs and FSHGs and other NGOs like VCDs.

The WUAs were limited to the rehabilitation activities during the implementation of Palmyra project. They do not do anything in the administration of the auctions and their benefits and they are not regulating the water management. After Palmyra project, the WUAs left the works of tank rehabilitation being then only like a SHG doing microfinance activities. The WUAs lost their importance, and the power that currently still have is maybe more related with the social position of the farmers who are forming part of them.

Farmer Profile of the WUAs

<1 acre 35

1‐2.5 acres 23

>2.5 acres 14

Total 72

Table 7. Number of farmers of the both WUAs aggregate according the land area. Source: FERAL (Foundation for Ecological Research, Advocacy and Learning). Resource handbook. Planning and

monitoring collective local resource management in the Kalivelli watershed. Pondicherry: Foundation for Ecological Research, Advocacy and Learning, 2005.

The Chinna Eri Sangam has meetings only when there is an important purpose to convoke a meeting in spite of that officially has a meeting monthly once. The Chinna Eri Sangam is formed by the owners of the nanjai lands of the Chinna Eri ayacut and some punjai farmers (and people who have both types of lands), that are using the water of the eri.

During Palmyra program, WUA used the money for the desiltation purpose. After Palmyra has left, the Chinna Eri WUA does not have funds to do any work, so actually they do not do any task, except help themselves in the managing of land licenses. They expect some money from the goverment.

‐ 92 ‐


The Periya eri sangam also has stopped his work, but they at least have still saving activities giving loans among themselves with low interest like a SHG. The savings are used also for repairing activities and every member is paying Rs. 50 every year for a common fund but now there has not been any big repair to do yet (in Palmyra period they spend approximately between Rs. 20,000 or Rs. 50,000 in the desiltation activities). The average loan among themselves is Rs. 5,000 but now they have about Rs. 50,000 saved. The WUA meets monthly once to discuss about the eri management and their accounts.

Role of the PWD and Union Panchayat

In theory, these two institutions are in charge of maintaining the Chinna Eri (Panchayat Union) and the Periya Eri (PWD), but they are not really involved, in practice, in the management, they are just coming if are required. As it has already been mentioned above, the Panchayat Union paid the last repair in the sluice in 2005.

The rehabilitation project of Palmyra and the lack of government funds maybe, according the authors opinion and experience living in the village, increase the distance between these administrative institutions and the local level manager institutions.

Role of Palmyra

As it has already been explained before, Palmyra had an important role in the rehabilitation of Endiyur tanks when they arrived at 1999 to the village. Here there are summarized the roles, in different aspects, of this NGO that along the text maybe the reader could observe.

The Palmyra had two main roles in the rehabilitation project of Endiyur tank ecosystems. On one hand they implemented the physical and technical works of the rehabilitation, improving in some aspects (canals, sluices, soil conservation…) the condition of tank ecosystem, and deteriorating it in other controversial issues (vegetation removing and loss of biodiversity) according the different opinions in the village. On the other hand Palmyra mobilized the community implementing the WUA, and specially the women with the WPG.

The aim of the following lines is to describe the community mobilisation aspects through the explanation of Palmyra role in it.

The important contribution of Palmyra in comparison with other NGOs is the creation of the Women Pattadar Groups inside the WUAs. When the NGO Palmyra went to the village, they organized first the two WUA only with men. Once the WUA was formed, they could tell the farmers to encourage their wives and other women who had land to organise the Pattadar groups. These goups were a contribution to the village development and the women empowerment, although this project was only for women landholders.

To help the WPG and to ensure their success, Palmyra tried to give these women one source of income. A foreign lady from Delhi gave 45,000 Rs to each group in the name

‐ 93 ‐


of Palmyra, so as to rent some land to save the profit of the crops. It was a plan for three years123. However, at the second year the WPGs decided to finish because it was too much work for them, they had to work in these new lands apart of working in their own lands. Then Palmyra said them to return the money. In spite of this failure in their own business, only with the benefits from the work they could start a new one, a fertilizers’ shop in Endiyur. They sell several kinds of fertilizers: natural manure (panchakavya), vermiculture manure, artificial manure and seeds. Some amount of the benefits goes to the WPG fund, other amount is used to pay the rent of the shop. Nowadays it is the main occupation of the WPGs apart of the microfinance activities.

The Palmyra community mobilisation has other some positive aspects for the village. The implementation of WUAs through one community mobilizer per group, serves for improving the knowledge of the farmers who learned during these years from other famous WUA like Kedar WUA, and from some agriculture training. Some farmers of Endiyur received also training in Andhra Pradesh to learn about efficient techniques to improve cultivation, like the System Rice Intensification and about other crops getting good results, for example, in groundnuts crops they could increase the time of production from 3 to 5 month. The farmers learned how to cultivate with natural manure (panchagavya, to use weeds as manure…) and about vermiculture and seeds treatment. Palmyra taught them how to test the water in wells for drinking purpose and tank rehabilitation and tank irrigation management.

Other positive aspect of the Palmyra village mobilisation was the saving activities of the SHGs inside the WUA.

However, the institutional building and its continuity along the time was not enough and, nowadays the WUA is not working as manager of the tank. Maybe it is related with the involvement of only farmers ayacutdars in the WUA, leaving outside the rest of stakeholders and users in the tank ecosystem and water resource management (landless people and punjai farmers) and also with the strong power and importance of the nattamais as previous traditional institution.

123 In India, to rent a land, the tenant farmer pays high amount of money at first and no more monthly. When the contract its over the owner will return all the money. The benefit of the owner is the interest that he got with this money in the bank.

‐ 94 ‐

Second case of study: Attur Located on the north‐west from Endiyur, Attur is a village with approximately 1,367 total population in 2001 mainly dedicated to agriculture, like in Endiyur. Nevertheless the main difference with a Endiyur, which is a suburban village, is the less facilities availale in Attur. The most important are the primary health center, the primary school shared between Ur and Colony and other private school. In general Attur village is poorer than Endiyur.

This village is segregated in two areas: the Colony and the Ur. The Ur is inhabitated by people under caste system (concretely MBC and BC) and the Colony is the small village of Scheduled caste people (previously known also as untouchables). Physically, these two areas are separated, and in practice they seem like two different villages.

There are two non‐system eris in Attur: the Attur Union Tank (also known as Periya eri), which is the most important in revenue generation (irrigation and natural resources auction), and the Aranguti Eri, which is very far from the inhabitating area of the village, it is used by other neighbour villages under an open access regime. This tank is also in disrepair and abandoned by the management institutions.

Nowadays in Attur there is a conflict about the sharing of the natural resources revenue among the Colony and the Ur that is going to be explained in the following pages.

Before starting the Attur description, it is necessary to remark that this explanation is repeating only the similarities and regularities with the first case of study, Endiyur, that are necessary to understand properly the text.

In the following paragraphs it is described the history, demography, economical activities, administrative organisations, social groups, natural resources and tank ecosystems (physical) and their management (social). In the table 8 there is a summary of the main basic information of Attur

Attur

1991 2001 Total area 461 ha 124 125 126

Total Population 1508 1367 Cultivated land 371 ha

Male 786 697

Female 722 670 Nanjai 115 ha

Households 299 290

124 Census of India. 1995. Census of India 1991, Tamil Nadu, Delhi: Office of the Registrar General. 125 Census of India. 2002. CensusInfo India 2001 v.1,CD format. Delhi: Registrar General and Census Commissioner. 126 The rest of the information is from an interview with the VAO of Attur the 18th of April of 2007.

‐ 95 ‐


Punjai Caste groups % population 256 ha 127

vanniar and Vannan (MBC)

Uncultivated land

1 ha Ur 37

naidu, Yadeva, Mudaliyar (BC)

Inhabitating area 4 ha 24

Reddyars and Muslim (OC) 4

adi dravidar (SC) Colony 34 Waste land 84 ha

Christians (BC) 1

Type of landholding Size of the land Number of households

% of population

Big landowners > 5 acres 20 5

Small landowners 2.5‐5 acres 80 20

Marginal farmers < 2.5 acres 150 38

Landless ‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐ 146 37

Ayacut Tanks Waterspread area Number of sluices

Aranguti eri 9 ha 1 115 ha

Attur Union Tank 48 ha 1

Table 8. General data about Attur.

Village history The seven years of drought from 1959 to 1966 and the big flood that occured at the end of this period have been maybe the major events that have ever occured in Attur from sixties to nowadays. The flood of 1966 overflowed the Attur Union Tank canals and the village (Ur and Colony) was flooded, every household and the trees were damaged. The bunds of the tanks of other neighbour villages (like Salavadi or Vittalapuram) were broken also. Fortunately there was only one mortal victim in the supply channels of Attur Union Tank. In 1996 a similar flood came to the Attur village overflowing similarly the Attur Union Tank and watterlogging every household.

127 This information is from a focus groups with the nattamais of Attur

‐ 96 ‐


After the big drought at the beginning of sixties, the water scarcity has been very common from time to time if not too often, an example of this, are last two years when the water scarcity affects all the villagers.

The power supply evolution, an important aspect to understand the village development, has been very similar to Endiyur, because they received at the same time the same policies from the government and the same technological improvements in the well pumps. The consequences of the Green Revolution are the same for Attur than for Endiyur.

The drinking water is an aspect interesting to explain in the case of Attur that also have some similarities with Endiyur history128. Before 1945 they used the kulam as drinking water source, after they used a well (with rope and basket). The borewells arrived at the beginning of sixties with the Green Revolution. Till 1986 the handpumps did not arrive to the village, and the pipeline connection to the overhead tank arrived in the Ur in 1996 and in the Colony ten years after, in 2006.

Demography The total population in Attur in 2001, the last year with data available, was 1,367 persons, 697 males and 670 women (see table 8). Approximately 970 villagers live in the Ur, about 206 families and there were 397 inhabitants in the Colony, approximately 84 families129, having the two areas of the village an average size of families of five members and totally 290 households.

There is a seasonal and economical transitory migration every year bigger than in Endiyur. Most of males in the Colony (75%), for example, go to Chennai or Pondicherry to work as road constructors and daily labourers between approximately Masi and Aadi (from the middle of February to the middle of July). During Aavani‐Thai, they work as agricultural labourers. In the Ur, people without work in the field go outside to find job, mostly of them in the construction works for 10‐15 days.

The landless people (agricultural labourers) are having troubles to find job in Attur since the last two years because there is water scarcity, so they have to go outside of the village to find other works. There are labourers in the colony that only stay some days living in Attur.

In recent times, the people are migrating to the nearby towns in a permanent migration. They are selling the lands because they can earn more money in the city than in the village. It could be a feasible explanation of the population reduction that can be observed in Attur.

Caste groups The people that live in the Ur, like in Endiyur, belong mainly to the Most Backward Caste (MBC) category being vanniar (150 families) or Vannan (only few families of washermen). There are also approximately 100 families of Bacward Castes (BC): naidu,

128 In the section about Endiyur history it is not explained the drinking water supply because is very similar than Attur and in this last one is more interesting for the caste issue. 129 Information collected from open interview with the Village Administrative Officer (VAO).

‐ 97 ‐


Mudaliyar or Yadeva. Finally the rest of families are Other Caste (OC), Muslims or Reddyars.

In the Colony all the people is Scheduled Caste, the harijan130, and the most extended caste is Adi Dravidar (that means Original Dravidian). Only few families are Christian and they are considered as Backward Caste (BC).

Economic activities The most of the people in Attur are dedicated to the agriculture. There are only few people who have other occupations, only few grocery shops and manufactory textile production. The landless people and the Colony inhabitants (landless and marginal farmers) work as daily labourer in road and building construction. The women specially work as agricultural labourers during 20‐30 days in other villages or harvesting the rice since Masi to Panguni. (February to April).

Landholding The population can be divided between the landowners (63%) and the landless people (37%). Among landowners there are some differentiation according to the size of the land. See table 8.

The total areas of punjai and nanjai land are featured in the explanation of the natural resources of the village.

There are some clear differences between the Colony and Ur about landholding aspects. Although the Scheduled Caste people did not have land some years before, now lots of them have a small plot being small or marginal farmers. The rest of the people in the Colony are landless. The most of landless people of Attur live in Attur Colony.

The most of the people in Attur Ur own land in nanjai, having more surface than the owners of the Colony (usually more than 2 acres in nanjai and punjai). The most of the big farmers of Attur live there.

Agricultural practices and crops The main crops in Attur are basically the same as in Endiyur (see annex 4).

About the agricultural practices in the case of Attur we add new information very similar to Endiyur. In general they take the 16.6% to self‐consumption (food+seeds), and sell the rest. They use to keep 30% of the production in Punjai crops for seed for the next year. With paddy they take 1/3 of the crop for themselves.

The use of fertilizers is mainly focused in artificial ones like DMP, Potasio, Amonia, Phosporus. Spic, DAP, Photasium, ammonium, Gypsum, Furadin.

They also use ash as fertilizer, but only for some specific crops like chili or tomato. They get the ash from cows excrements and from some wood waste.

130 Term used to define the Hindu Scheduled Caste.

‐ 98 ‐


Punjai farmers put dung in Aani (June‐July)every year. Nanjai farmers put manure at the time of every crop.

The silt from the tank is also used as manure for punjai and nanjai. The farmers use the silts every 2‐3 year because one excess can change the characteristics of the soil.

The Government (Agriculture Department) is organizing some training programmes about how manage the pests and the cultivation practices.

Cattle rearing Some of the landless people have cattle, but few of them have enough quantity to work all the day with it, being shepherds. Theybring the cattle to the lands of other villages to graze, and also to the kulams, in the south of the village, to drink. Otherwise, they just use the lands in Attur and the water from the eri, the own well or the handpump. The shepherds do not need to ask for permission to the landowners to bring the cattle to graze in their lands, but they take care of going only to uncultivated lands.

A part of the people who have one or two cows for self‐consumption of milk, whoever who want to sell the milk go to the Milk Societies in Endiyur and Manur.

Administrative organisation and institutions

Village Panchayat Attur panchayat manages the hamlet constituted by Attur Ur and Attur Colony and belongs to Marakanam Union Panchayat. There are 6 wards in Attur Village Panchayat having each one a representative. There are 2 ward members from Attur Colony, and 4 ward members from Attur Ur. Within this ward members there are two females, belonging one to the Colony and to from the Ur.

The panchayat elections started approximately twenty years before in Attur and the elections are every five years. The past elections (carried out 9 months ago) were the first elections where the reservation policies of the Government (the official president must be a SC woman) were applied. It is the first time that the president of the panchayat of Attur belongs to the Colony, so people in the colony think that things are improving for them. The situation of the woman who is the president of the panchayat is the same as in Endiyur. She remains in silent during the panchayat meetings, but when she is alone she shows all her integrity and knowledge.

The main duties of panchayat is to provide and maintenance of electricity, drinking water and street lights, and to facilitate the auctions of the natural resources of the tanks.

Nattamais In Attur the traditional institution which manages the temple, the village and the tanks is organized little bit different than in Endiyur.

There are also five nattamais managing the resources for both, Ur and Colony, but they are all from the Ur. Four nattamais are vanniar (MBC) and one naidu (BC). Thirty years ago there was only one nattamai, from the same family. Now there are five, but they are the same than twenty years ago. It is still hereditary charge.

‐ 99 ‐


There are five groups of contributors to the temple, and the money from the auctions and from the collect (about Rs. 150‐200 per family) is divided in six parts, one per each group and sixth is kept as common fund. The five sponsors group organize each one, one day of festivals. The sixth day is organized with the common fund.

The main activities of the nattamais are to organise the temple festivals and manage the common fund of the temple. Other duties are to solve conflicts as judges and to manage the eris. The nattamais manage the auctions of Attur, but Panchayat also is having their role in them.

There were two thottis before, one per each sluice of the big tank, in charge of open and close the sluice. Now he does not interfere in the eri management nor in the water allocation, but he is in the burial ceremonies and shouting in the auction of the main road, sending the information with drums. The farmers pay him some paddy for repairing the sluices . 131

VAO and Talliari The Village Administrative Officer (VAO) is in charge of conducting the government certificates, subsides and of assigning the ration cards for the rural poor people. He also collect the taxes for the Revenue Department and has all the administrative information of the village. Other two tasks are to manage the elections (IDs, candidates) and to give the pensions to some people (elder people, widows, etc.).

The VAO has one assistant called talliari, from Attur Colony. Before there were two talliaris but now one is died and his charge is vacant. He has de same duties as the talliari of Endiyur.

Village society and social life of Attur Attur, as small village divided in Ur and Colony and with fewer facilities than Endiyur has a social life and a social structure very different than Endiyur.

The caste‐based conflicts are usual and the division among Ur and Colony is very important because it is not only a caste division, it is also a division of economical classes, being the Scheduled Caste people poorer than the Ur villagers. The caste hierarchy is reproduced in Attur, but also, like in Endiyur, there is a social hierarchy depending on the landholding, overall in the Ur, where there is more heterogeneity among landholders and some of them have some power and social recognition. In the Colony there are not such big differences in the social position because the landowners are small or marginal. In both areas of the Attur there is one leader: Panchayat in the Colony and nattamais in the Ur. It increases the lack of relation and dialogue. It is also directly related with the conflict about the auctions of tank’s resources that will be explained below. The auctions are the key of a conflict that started when the Panchayat president was elected.

Different than in Endiyur, the nomads do not set up anytime in the village, just go to the village to sell some goods.

131 Information collected with open interview with the current Thotti (called Danasu)

‐ 100 ‐


Next, there is the description of the formal organisations (political parties and self‐help groups) present in Attur.

Political parties The main political parties are ADMK (Anna Dravida Munnatra Kazhagam= Anna Dravida Development Party), DMK (Dravida Munnatra Kazhagam= Dravida Development Party), PMK (Pattali Makkal Katchi= Workers People Party), DPI (Dalit Panter of India). The current Panchayat President is belonging to the DMK.

Self-Help Groups (SHG) There are 16 Women Self‐help group in Attur: 6 in the colony and 10 in the Ur. Some time ago there were 7 groups in the Colony, but one disappeared because its leader moved to Chennai. The Union Panchayat told them to be organized in 2000 and to join to the Government programme. In the Ur was the last Panchayat President who belonged to one Independent party called Abdul Kadhar who encouraged women to form the groups. The WSHG can be promoted by private organizations (NGOs), the Government, and political parties (DMK, ADMK, PMK). Some women are reticent to join to the groups formed by political parties, because the reason to join to a WSHG is only for financial security purpose, so they do not want to give their support to anybody with these activities.

The WSHG are formed mainly by agricultural labourers. The WSHG of Attur are working in the same way as Endiyur. They speak about the account balance, the government loans and make pressure to the members who are not paying, also they speak about some problems of the village. They don’t have common goods. They use the saving only for personal purpose, like marriage, but they don’t use it to invest for other things, like credit plus activities. But in the Ur, the WSHG want to start a business with the help of the NGO Hand in Hand, which is going to give them 5 lacks for each group, and they only will have to return 3.5 lacks. With this money they will rent a land for 3 years to extract soil to make bricks and to sell them. The first thing that they want to do is to refund the loan and then to continue alone.

There are two Men Self‐help Groups (MSHG) one in the Colony and other in the Ur. The MSHG in the Ur was created in November of the 2006 by young people (the leader is the son of one nattamai). The main activities are to improve savings (giving loans with 3% of interest and without interest if these activities are: accident, disease or pregnant wife). The condition to enter is a membership fee: Rs. 25 to enter and other paid monthly once (Rs. 105). The occupations of the people of this group are variety: wage labourers, farmers, electricians, business men, agricultural labourers. Their aim is to help people; they want to work as a little bank. As to the WSHG, the NGO Hand in Hand give to them loans.

The NGO, VCDS (Village community Development Society) Sweedan NFE (Non‐Formal Education) for Democracy Attur come to also the village in 2000 to implement some projects about informal education in the Colony.

‐ 101 ‐


132Natural Resources of the villageTo understand the two tanks ecosystems (Aranguti Eri and Attur Union Tank) is very important to know the context, a proper frame of the rest natural resources that Attur has. The soil is, joint to the water, the most important natural resource for agriculture. The cultivated land is the 80% of Attur area, and it is divided in punjai (256 ha) and nanjai land (115 ha). See the table 8

Attur, has also some tamarind trees in its correspondent piece of main road and their auction benefits are shared between the Ur and the Colony. The auction of tamarind trees is also done between January and March, when the fruit is mature. The way of sharing the money from all the auctions is one third for the Colony and two thirds to the Ur, but now the new elected Panchayat wants an equal share. Last year, 2006, the auction of the tamarind trees gave Rs. 17,000.

In the annex 2 it is shown the participatory map of natural resources of the village made in a PRA exercise with the villagers.

Tank ecosystem description

Tank’s technology There are two non‐system tanks in Attur, Attur Union Eri (sometimes called “Periya” that means big in Tamil), and Aranguti Eri. Attur Union Eri has a waterspread area of 48 ha and it is belonging to the PWD, and Aranguti Eri has 9 ha and it is belonging to the Marakkanan Union Panchayat. The total ayacut is about 115 ha.

The Attur Union Eri is shared between the Ur, which is situated in the west side of the eri, and the Colony, in the opposite side.

The Aranguti Eri is far from the village, and the lands of its ayacut are mostly belonging to landowners from other villages, Salavadi, Vittalapuram and Allapakkam. So people of neighbouring villages is exploding the natural resources of this eri. May be due to that reason Attur people do not use to have the perception that it is belonging to the village. It is in very bad conditions, no maintaining work has been made during many years.

The Attur Union Tank has water available between four months, from Aippasi to Masi (from the middle of October to the middle of March). Being full during the Rainy season: Kaarttikai and Margali, of course, there is water in the tank during six months. The last time when this tank was full was the Last October, 2006. The Aranguti Eri has water only two months, from Aipasi to Kaartikai (from the middle of October to the middle of December).

There is a little bit of encroachment, less than one hectare, in the end of the water‐spread area of both eris. In the case of Aranguti Eri the encroachers are the farmers from Salavadi and Vittalapuram, two neighbour villages. Although that encroachment does not make any conflict in the village, the farmers only take few feet to the eri,

132 Information collected with PRA exercise and Natural Resources mapping.

‐ 102 ‐


which disappear under the water in the rainy season. The Government fines have already been explained in the Endiyur chapter.

There are four supply canals (odais in Tamil) that are giving water to the Attur Union Tank. They are coming from the surplus water of Aranguti Eri, from Vittalapuram tank, Vittalapuram mountain and from Manur.

Next to the Attur Union Eri, in the Ur side, there is another canal which starts from the canal that comes from Manur and goes through Endiyur to Molasur, but it uses to be blocked with a pile of soil. When the Attur Union Eri is full the people of the Ur open the connection and the water from Manur and from Attur Union Eri can flow to Molasur. The surplus weirs of the eri are situated in the opposite side of the bund, the Colony side, and the surplus water flows next to the bund surrounding the Colony and when it finishes the surplus canal crosses some lands until to end in the middle of one plot. The Attur Union Eri only has surplus water in some punctual cases when there are heavy rains. The surplus weirs of the Aranguti Eri have surplus water the most of the years.

There are two sluices in Periya Eri, one which goes to the nanjai lands near the Ur and one which is near the Colony and in worse condition.

Both eris have a bund full of vegetation and its impossible to walk through it. The bund of the Aranguti Eri is lower than the Attur Union Eri one, which has been strengthened due to the NREGA desiltation activities from February 2006. They are planning to do these activities every year during the months in which the eri don’t have water.

Other water bodies: functions and uses The rest of water bodies are under Panchayat Union control, but like in Endiyur in practise they are maintained by the Village Panchayat president and nattamais. Actually it is important to say that Colony people feel that all the kulams are belonging to the Ur, because they are closer to the Ur. So, for them there is not any kulam in the village, so only the Ur people are using the kulams.

The kulams are little ponds for multiple purpose and the kuttais are the smallest ones, they are used for waste water.

There are five kulams in Attur managed by the five nattamais. The kulams are used for recharging groundwater, washing clothes, taking bath, toilet (when there is water availability) and for drinking water and of the cattle, in three of them there is fish, but nobody in the village planed to put them there for any purpose. There is an auction of the fishes in Amma Kulam and sometimes they put young and small fishes. To know if the fishes will grow naturally in the kulams the people of the village taste the soil, if it has a lot of salts and nutrient it will be good. Then they will not be allowed to take the soil from the kulams because the eggs of the fishes are contained in the soil.

In the summer season they use the kulams as common land to graze the cattle. They are also used by children to collect honey in the surrounding bush area and trees.

The Amma Kulam, located on the north, is connected with the Attur union tank feeding it through a canal. Near this kulam there are the Kaniaman kulam and the Kolimotu or Votam kuttai, but they are not connected. In the lands, near to Mannur there are two

‐ 103 ‐


kulams more, Malapam Nayakan Kulam and Moora Kulam and Kula Kuttai, they are near and connected to the canal that is going to Molasur tank.

One kulam, the Pasang Kulam, which was near the water tank, has been lost because it was full of silts and then the people built on. The small kuttais are used sometimes for the common waste water.

Drinking water Many years ago the villagers used water from kulams and wells. In 1945 they had to stop drinking water from the kulams due to diseases. In 1958 they had electric pumps and borewells for agriculture. In 1986 the Government built the hand pumps. The Union Panchayat built in 1996 street pipes for drinking water in the Ur, which are coming from a well situated in the nanjai area, below the bund. The street pipes for the Colony have been built from 2006 and the water is coming from a well situated near the bund of the Attur Union Eri through a pipe to an overhead water tank.

Groundwater The farmers can apply for free the electric power supply for the pumps, like it was explained before.

There are 55 electric lines for agricultural wells in Attur133, there are 120 electric lines in Attur Ur and 60 lines in Attur colony for domestic uses.

The 80% have well in their land, and like in Endiyur, the most of the people have one well but there are few people that have 2 or 3 wells. The remaining 20% buy the water to the others with 1/3 of the season production. If somebody wants to buy the water per time has to pay about 30 Rs per hour. In the Colony the people use to have less wells, sometimes they are sharing the wells.

Usually, the level of the well water is high between Aippasi to Margai (from the middle of October to the middle of January), then it starts to decrease. Only if the eri is full the wells will have water for 4 months, since then it will decrease. The average of the wells depth is between 10‐12m. The minimum level is in Aadi and Aavani (from the middle of June to the middle of September), when the borewells can have very little amount of water or be dried.

The farmers are mainly using the wells than the water from the eri in spite of being part of the same hydrogeologic system.

Natural resources description The natural resources of both eris are similar to Endiyur case. Generally, the vegetation of the two tanks are the same than Endiyur but there are some differences.

The main uses of the trees in the bund are the same as in Endiyur, for firewood, like in the case of Karuvella maram or Vellikatan (Prosopis juliflora), and for leaves and fruits, like the palm trees (Borassus flabellifer).

133 Information collected in interview with the Electricity officer in the Electricity office of Attur and Manur, Tamil Nadu Electricity Board in Viluppuram District the 22nd of April of 2007.

‐ 104 ‐


The Attur Union Tank has receipt a Social Forestry project from the Forest Department that planted trees, Acacia nilotica in the eri, and after 20 years they cut them for wood contacting the district level auction.

There are carp species of fish, like in the Endiyur case. They go to fish with nets and hands in the dry season when the level of water is low.

Saccharum sponteneumIn the case of the grass, the dominant specie is also the same, called locally Vellal but there was another abundant and dominant in a mixed soil like in Attur Union Tank fodder grass like Cynodon dactilone and Goldinia procombans, which is dominant also in clay soil areas in the tank bed (see annex 3).

The silt is used as manure (dried and mixed with coconut tree and sand) for both punjai and nanjai. If somebody wants silts to use them as manure he can extract them by himself, like in Endiyur, and transporting them with a tractor, cow or any vehicle to his land. It is necessary to pay workers to do that, and to distribute the silts on the land. It was more usual before, 20 years ago, also people from other villages took it to their lands.

Red soil comes from the surrounding of the tanks, it is use to make bricks for building.

Description of other uses, functions and roles of the Tank People from the Colony use only the eri, and not the kulams, for swimming, drinking cattle and washing clothes. The villagers said that they clean the clothes in the eri far from the common well so as to do not pollute the water.

Children of the Colony use the eri as a playground or leisure area. The children also use the eri to play cricket when it is dry enough.

In the Ganesh festival in Aavani(August‐September), the Colony inhabitants use the wet silts to make dolls for the festival. In Kaartikai (November‐December)they put a land in front of the house and they put the lamps in the eri to give rain for them.

Tank management

Maintenance of tanks Opposite than in Endiyur, Attur Union Tank and Aranguti eri are not part of any tank rehabilitation project of any NGO or the PWD. Nowadays the desiltation activities are carried out by the NREGA managed by Panchayat like lots of villages in the area.

Traditionally the desiltation should be done in the eri every 4‐5 years. The last desiltation of the tank bed was 12 years ago. The last time they desiltate the supply canals was 2 years ago. Before the intervention of the government, the eri was only desiltated by farmers only when they needed silts as fertilizer. This year the villagers did the desiltation with the NREGA works, but they have had a conflict with the Government, because it wanted them to do 165 feet long, 60 feet width and 1 foot depth per day in the Attur Union Eri, but people thought that the amount of work was too much, so they make a proposal of 100 feet long, 25 feet width and 1 foot depth per day, and after some discussion the Government accepted.

‐ 105 ‐


The desiltation works have not been made in the Aranguti Eri because it can storage only a small amount of water, and the Village Panchayat prioritize the big one because it irrigates a bigger extension of land and they do not have enough funds to do the desiltation in both eris. The PWD engineers inspect the desiltation works to decide about the money that is needed to implement the work.

Nanjai people do the desiltation of the irrigation canals, in the rainy season, when the soil is wet. They do not desiltate in summer season because the dryness and the hardness of the soil make the work too much hard. All the people can take part of this activity, and nobody is paid.

Four years ago the surplus weir of the Attur Union Tank was repaired, this has been the last repair that has been done in the tanks. In the emergencies the procedure is the same as in Endiyur. The Panchayat and the nattamai put the money first to solve quickly the emergency, then the panchayat ask for economic help to the PU or thee PWD.

Natural resources management

Water

The water of both eris is distributed by timing and the canals are managed by the farmers who want water. Every farmer work individually to clean and maintain the canals, without collective organisation. As it has been said, some years before the tottis were in charge to open and close the sluice, and nowadays, like in Endiyur, the thotti can be required to open and close the sluice.


The natural resources of the Attur Union Tank belong to the state, and is the PWD who is in charge of managing and preserving them. However, who is managing it at local level are the nattamais and the Panchayat. The panchayat takes auction from the Marakanam Union Panchayat with the permission of the nattamai, similarly than in Endiyur, but with worse relation between these two institutions, due to this caste‐based and socio‐economical and structural conflict.

From 1984 to 9 months ago (when the panchayat from the Colony won the elections for the first time) the panchayat used to buy the usufruct rights of the fish, the grass and the trees to the Union Panchayat Marakkanan. Then the village people, the panchayat and the nattamais did the auction. The money from the auctions of fish and trees from the eri was shared within the Ur and the Colony, the 65% was for the Ur and the 35% for the Colony, as has already been said. The money was used for the temple festivals.

The actual panchayat, belonging to the Colony, wants the 50 % of the auctions for the Colony, and the nattamais from the Ur do not agree so, the conflict arises. Moreover, the people of the Ur have the perception that only are them who are taking care of the resources of the tank, and they do not like that the people of the Colony could participate in the auctions a get the rights to exploit the natural resources, but there is not any restriction for the Colony villagers. It is difficult to know exactly the true, but currently this is the reason argued by the Ur people to hold their position against the equal sharing of the auction benefits. Maybe they want a sharing according to the

‐ 106 ‐


proportion population of each. This situation has forced to stop transitionally the auctions this year.

The auction of all tank resources is contacted approximately twenty days after the auction of tamarind trees, always according to the level of water in the tanks, approximately in Panguni (beginning of March). The last year 2006, only the fishes were auctioned and the price was Rs. 3,000 for the fish in both Attur Union Tank and Amma Kulam. For the grass, two years ago, the auction price was Rs. 500 in Aranguti Eri and Rs. 1,500‐2,000 in Attur Union Tank.

As in Endiyur, the panchayat as to pay money to the Union Panchayat for the property rights of the eris. These money will be returned later to the village common fund. The last year 2006, the panchayat expended in advance Rs. 3,000 paying for the property rights (1,850 for tamarind trees+ 300‐800 for the tank resources, and taxes) but also for the people involved in the auction: VAO, Talliari, Clerk of PU and thotti, the purpose is to avoid bribes. After the auction process, the total amount was Rs. 20,000, and the Rs. 3,000 were returned to the panchayat, so the remaining Rs. 17,000 were shared among the Ur (Rs. 10,000) and the Colony (Rs. 7,000). The money that is sent to the Ur is divided between the five groups of temple contributors.

The indirect beneficiaries of the auctions are the people of the village because the money of the auction is used as before for the temple festivals (street dramas) and for the common infrastructures.

In the case of Aranguti Eri the natural resources are under open access. Attur people do not feel that the Aranguti Eri is part of the village because is so far from the inhabited area and the neighbour villages, Salavadi, Alapakkam, and Vittalapuram are using more the tank resources. They take fish, grass, fruits and firewood for free.

Trees

The trees on the bund in Attur Union Tank are auctioned by nattamais and panchayat. The last one was five years ago. The trees inside the Attur Union Tank bed are Acacia nilotica and Prosopis juliflora and are managed, like in the Periya Eri of Endiyur, through district level auctions every ten years because are belonging to a Social Forestry program. However, as was happening also in Endiyur, some villagers take firewood illegally. Four years ago there was the last auction of the trees on the bed. One third of the benefits went to the Marakkanam Union Panchayat.

Fish

The fish management is the same than Endiyur in the case of Attur Union Tank. The fish of Aranguti Eri is taken in open access regime by neighbouring villages.

In the auction of the fish, the person who takes the auction pays the half of the usufruct rights before fishing and selling the fishes. The second part of the price has to be paid after selling the fish, in case of bad rain and the associated bad growth of the fish they do not have to pay this amount.

‐ 107 ‐


Grass

The auctions of the grass in Attur Union Tank and the restrictions to bring the cattle to graze in the eri are the same than in Endiyur. This year, unluckily, one accident burnt the grass, so the auction of the grass has been suppressed. The grass of Aranguti Eri is the only resource auctioned of this tank but not annually. When the auction is celebrated, the people of Salavadi and Vittalapuram are invited to participate. This year the grass of this eri was also burned but, in this case, was done as regeneration technique. The grass used for the roofs (Saccharum sponteneum) is able to grow after burning, robustly, but the rest of plants that not give the same profit and the weeds do not have this ability, being less favoured to recolonize the tank bed.

Silt

The use of silt is on decay, some years ago there was an auction of it that currently they do not do. Nowadays, as has been explained, everybody who wants can go and take silt from the eri to fertilize the lands because without excess it is good for the tank ecosystem.

Stakeholders in the tank management The relation between the different stakeholders in the tank management is currently marked by the socio‐economical, structural and caste‐based conflict between nattamais and panchayat as representatives of the two areas of the village and the two different caste groups. The absence of WUA in the village increases the importance of the panchayat and nattamais for the maintenance of the tank. Palmyra came to the village trying to convince the people to rehabilitate the tank, but being poorer than in Endiyur, the villagers did not be able to collect enough money to collaborate with the required 30% of the fund for the project, a condition that Palmyra need to trust in the villagers. The caste division in this case is also difficulting the formation of the WUA due to the constant conflicts and unwilling to collaborate between the Ur and the Colony.

At the same time, the nattamais, as the informal village leaders in the Ur and the main management body of the tank, consider that they need some help from the government to create the WUA. The government have come so they have not implemented this management institution. Also they think that it is not necessary to implement a new institution because the current management is quite good.

Nattamais and Panchayat

In Attur Ur, the nattamais are really the main institutions in the tank management and the village development, but also are clearly the best positioned farmers in the village. It is very different than in Endiyur in which the nattamais are not always the richer and elder farmers. The role of nattamais is also related with the social relations in the Ur. It is very common to find lots of farmers resting in the centre of the village beside the temple and under the shadow of a big Banian tree. In this context the nattamais solve the conflicts and take decisions about the problems of the village and tank. This is the place where the farmers use to meet and discuss how to deal with the water scarcity in years of slightly rain.

‐ 108 ‐


In Attur Colony, the people think that the main manager is the panchayat president that now belongs to this area. Actually the panchayat is doing, like in Endiyur, the role to facilitate the relation with the formal institution in the auction procedure and in the maintenance. The panchayat is also undertaking the NREGA in the Attur Union Tank and is planning to start with the Aranguti eri the next year134. This situation is giving power to the panchayat who has now an important duty in the tank maintenance and this collaborates increasing the conflict between the nattamais and panchayat. These two institutions are representative of one part of the population and have two different roles in the management. The panchayat president would like to be the representative of all Attur villagers and cooperate with the nattamais, but the historic and current conflict makes it a difficult task.

Role of the PWD and Union Panchayat

Like in Endiyur, in theory, these two institutions are in charge of maintaining the Aranguti Eri (Panchayat Union) and the Attur Union Tank (PWD), but they are not really involved in the management and only are coming on requirement.

Management deficiencies in our study cases To conclude this chapter of description of our study cases is going to be done a brief reflection about the deficiencies and conflicts of the management of our study tanks.

The management in both villages is not considering all the activities and uses that are currently carried out by the village people. Some of these are activities directly related with water, and they can pollute it, with the consequent environmental risks, with actions like washing clothes, taking bath or using the tank like a toilet. Also there are non‐auctioned resources which the villagers extract without any restriction, like the medicinal plants or the soil for building raw materials. The lack of control of all these activities can contribute to the damage of the tank ecosystem.

The traditional control of the allocation of water from the tank has been lost, and now is in the hands of the farmers. This is caused, as some other authors have notice, due to the loss of authority of the Traditional Irrigation Institutions and the lack of interest of the farmers for this common infrastructure. The lack of interest among the farmers is present because almost each farmer have wells in their lands, so farmers are managing directly and individually the groundwater, making the irrigation through the water of the tank not as essential as before (although in this rocky zone the tank is still important enough to set differences among the people who have access or not to the tank water).

The bad conditions of the Aranguti Eri in Attur is a very good example of extreme deficiency of management of a tank. The main cause here is the large distance to the village, fact which has caused that most of users and landowners farming in the command area of Aranguti Eri are not population of Attur. So, the sensation of Attur villagers is that the they don’t have to be concerned by this tank. In the same way is happening in Attur Colony with the kulams, which are quite far away from this village.

134 Information collected through open interview with Village Panchayat.

‐ 109 ‐


The consequences are a worrying lack of interest for these structures resulting in an absent management.

The WUA has not been created in Attur yet because they did not accept the help of the NGO Palmyra, which could impulse the formation of this official institution in the village. The reasons told by the villagers were the lack of economic resources to implement the proposed project of Palmyra. However, in Endiyur, there are two WUAs, but they are not currently actives, because they do not have funds to do any rehabilitation work nowadays. The nature of the WUAs, formed only by nanjai farmers, origins a direct exclusion of the other users of the tank ecosystem. But among the nanjai farmers of the WUA there is also others kinds of exclusion, due to the social hierarchy inside the WUA, and a gender discrimination, which affects women and smallest (and poorer) nanjai landowners, becoming a real “participatory exclusion”135. The consideration of only nanjai farmers in the association in charge of managing the tank (in theory in this case, because WUAs are not working in the reality) would affect the management, because this kind of people is giving preference to irrigation, leaving the other uses of the tank ecosystem.

The conflict among the sharing of money from the auctions of the natural resources of the tank between Attur Ur and Attur Colony, can be translated as a conflict among the Village Panchayat and the nattamais (modern institution vs. Traditional Institution), and it may reflect a caste conflict or a social class conflict caused by the level of richness. The reasons given by the Colony for this demand is the equity, but rather than this, it can be considered as the assumption of their own poverty that develop in an exigency to help to solve their situation to everybody who they consider is richer than them. On the other hand, the people of the Ur is against the equal sharing of the benefits of the auctions, maybe because there are more population in the Ur than in the Colony, and they think that the current sharing is corresponding with the proportion of population in every village. Anyway, it is true that with the equal sharing the people of Attur Ur would loose their traditional privileges.

Finally, we have to say that the policy of the government to leave to the Village Panchayat the decision about where is the place to implement the NREGA works, may have a controversial effect among the structures of power, as it has been seen in our study cases. It can be considerate that the management and decision about maintenance of tanks have been delegated to a local level institution, what implicates a drastic change, resulting in more decentralized and local management of tanks. On the other hand, the collective action of desiltation for the maintenance of the tank was neglected by the traditional institutions (in this case nattamais) long time ago, so there is not a clash among duties. The interesting fact is that this policy can be seen as an empowerment of the Village Panchayat over the management of the tank, and this can result in conflict with the authority of nattamais in the traditional management of tanks. In Endiyur this effect can be noticed, but only in a certain extent, due to the caste homogeneity and the fact that the election of the nattamais is not hereditary, so the power is not concentrated always in the same person. In Attur the conflict has arisen, but also due to another policy of the Government, the SC reservation for the Panchayat

135 Agarwal, B., 2001

‐ 110 ‐


President, that practically have given empowerment for first time in their history to the SC people of Attur Colony. In summary, the emergence of the tank management through the NREGA desiltation activities can create tensions among the village administration institutions (traditional and official).

‐ 111 ‐

6

Results and discussion

In this chapter it is analyzed the results of the three surveys (209 interviews in total) in the study cases, made with a criteria of selection of people to try not to leave any part of the population, as we understand that many different stakeholders are included in the water tank ecosystem.

Free listing Free listing is a qualitative study focused in knowing the perception of the villagers about the tank. In this survey, only one question was formulated to 54 different people in the villages. It was necessary to design a question (this method is explained in chapter 4) which concentrates in the answer the perception of the people about the tank, including all the different functions, uses and resources. In the answer of the interviewed people they have to make a list, so at the beginning the question thought was: “Tell me all the uses, functions and resources from the eri that you can remember”. After some tries, the question changed to become much more understandable for the villagers, in order to find the kind of answer that we were looking for. The question finally was: Why is the eri important for the village?, and we succeed in the enumeration by the villagers of many uses, functions and resources related to the tank. Apart from making the people think about all the elements and uses that join the tank with the community, this question is also revealing the importance that people is giving to these resources and uses of the tank, and which of the activities made are more common or more rare, depending on the order of the enumeration of elements that they give in their answer. This test and the results obtained from it also helps to design the other two tests, where it must be more clear what are the important elements of the water tank ecosystem and their relations that the population perceive.

Two parameters have been considered in the analysis then, the frequency of appearance in the list of each elements and the order in the list. Although the main list analyzed is the general one where is shown the answers of all the interviewed people, 5 groups of categories have been done in order to make comparisons among the people that were supposed to have different perception: women/men, landholders/landless, nanjai(+punjai)/punjai, Endiyur/Attur and Attur Ur/Attur Colony. Due to the sampling of each category is statistically too small, these results will only be utilized to have a general idea about which uses are mainly considered by each group of stakeholders.

General results (see table 9) People mentioned in total 51 different elements and uses related to the eri, what is a very relevant data. 51 different answers are an extraordinarily high number of elements, what means that the local population really demonstrates that they relate a lot of things with the tank, having such a perception where they don’t remember only the classical elements which are thought to be associated with the tank, like the agriculture or the water uses. Another relevant data is the average number of items

‐ 112 ‐


associated with the tank per person, in this case 8, what is a considerable number given the specific conditions of this survey, which is not asking for making lists of simple things (like fruits or flowers), but it is enquiring for quite abstract concepts.

Here is necessary to explain two of the main categories: the word “crops” also includes similar answers like agriculture, but “irrigation” is not included within this last category, because it may have a different sense, meaning that with this answer the interviewed people could be thinking only in the agriculture irrigated exclusively with surface water from the tank, but not in the rest of agriculture like the punjai crops, irrigated by wells. One argument for this division is that many people have mentioned both concepts in their answers. There are other categories which look similar, like “grass” and “grass for roofs”, but they are classified differently because the real pretension of these answers is different; “grass” is a very generic concept that may have other uses like pasture for the livestock.

Among all the answers, 15 elements have been considered the most important according to the Smith’s Index, which balances the frequency of the answers with the order. These elements have been repeated at least 14 times by the interviewed people and they have been mentioned in the first positions.

ITEM FREQUENCY FREC % AVG RANK Smith's S

1 CROPS 43 80 2.093 0.700

2 IRRIGATION 25 46 2.840 0.377

3 DRINKING WATER FOR CATTLE 29 54 3.759 0.372

4 FISH 33 61 5.515 0.285

5 DRINKING WATER 23 43 3.826 0.283

6 RECHARGE OF WELLS (GROUNDWATER) 20 37 3.700 0.260

7 WATER STORAGE DEVICE 14 26 3.000 0.190

8 TO WASH CLOTHES 19 35 6.211 0.175

9 GRASS TO MAKE ROOFS 15 28 4.933 0.172

10 TREES 21 39 6.000 0.168

11 GRASS 16 30 5.500 0.150

12 FIREWOOD 16 30 6.438 0.135

13 BATHING 15 28 6.333 0.128

14 SILT USED AS MANURE 14 26 6.929 0.111

15 AUCTION OF FISH 14 26 7.143 0.102

16 PLANTS 10 19 6.300 0.086

17 AUCTION OF GRASS 10 19 7.000 0.077

18 GRASS TO GRAZE THE CATTLE 10 19 6.500 0.075

19 AUCTIONS FROM TREES 8 15 9.250 0.057

20 NREGA CREATES EMPLOYMENT 7 13 6.714 0.056

21 INCREMENT OF PRODUCTION 4 7 4.250 0.045

22 BIRDS 5 9 7.600 0.041

23 CONTROL OF TEMPERATURE 5 9 7.000 0.041

‐ 113 ‐


24 CREATES EMPLOYMENT 5 9 6.200 0.039 25 TO WASH THE CATTLE 4 7 6.750 0.037

26 CRAB 4 7 5.000 0.036

27 TREES GIVING SHADOW 4 7 8.000 0.034

28 AUCTIONS 3 6 6.333 0.033

29 SILT 4 7 5.000 0.030

30 PROVIDES LIVELIHOOD 4 7 6.750 0.023

31 MALES TOILET 2 4 5.500 0.020

32 TREES ATTRACT THE RAIN 3 6 11.000 0.019

33 TO SAVE ELECTRICITY PUMPING 1 2 2.000 0.016

34 KULAMS 1 2 3.000 0.016

35 SNAKE 2 4 6.500 0.015

36 SNAIL 2 4 6.500 0.015

37 FRUITS 2 4 7.000 0.014

38 TO WASH VEHICLES 1 2 3.000 0.014

39 TREES OF BUND AVOID EROSION 2 4 11.000 0.010

40 TO LEARN TO SWIM 1 2 8.000 0.008

41 PREVENTION OF FLOODS 2 4 15.000 0.007

42 HONEY 1 2 6.000 0.007

43 SOIL 1 2 8.000 0.007

44 ORNAMENTAL FUNCTION 1 2 5.000 0.006

45 PROVIDES COMMON AREA 1 2 7.000 0.005

46 FROG 1 2 8.000 0.002

47 LEISURE SPACE 1 2 8.000 0.002

48 FESTIVAL 1 2 8.000 0.002

49 LIQUOR FROM TREES 1 2 16.000 0.002

50 TEMPLE 1 2 12.000 0.002

51 DOMESTIC WATER 1 2 14.000 0.001

------------------------------------ --------- ---------

Total/Average: 433 8.019

Table 9. Freelisting general results. Source: own elaboration.

One half of the 15 first elements of the ranking are related with the economic, social and ecological uses of water:

⋅ Crops ⋅ Irrigation ⋅ Drinking water for cattle

⋅ Drinking water

⋅ Recharge of wells (groundwater)

⋅ Water storage device

‐ 114 ‐


⋅ Washing clothes

⋅ Bathing The use of the water from the tank for “crops” has been the most mentioned, by 80% of the interviewed people, and it is always mentioned in one of the first positions, so this is the most important use of the tank. “Irrigation” was also mentioned by the 46% of the people and in the 3rd place. This was the expected result, because the tank has been conceived as an agricultural structure, and if we join both categories “crops” and “irrigation”, the result will show that 93% of the population has mentioned one of these elements (or both of them). On the other hand, it can be also noticed that not everybody has thought in the agricultural purpose of the tank, some of them (7%) have completely omitted these uses.

More than the 40% of the interviewed people told that the tank is important because it provides drinking water, which is in the 5th place. As it has been told before, the overhead tank of drinking water in the villages is connected to the wells, which are situated always near or inside the tank, so the people was able to make a relation between wells and tank. The next two answers (“recharge groundwater” and “water storage device”) also confirm that villagers are able to make this hydrological relation, although this kind of functions, which are not related directly with human uses, are more difficult to realize by the villagers.

The other half of elements of the ranking of 15 are related to the natural resources associated with the tank:

⋅ Fish ⋅ Grass for the roof ⋅ Grass ⋅ Trees ⋅ Firewood

⋅ Silts for manure

⋅ Auction of the fish Fish, trees and grass, the main natural resources of the tank, have been mentioned for most of people. As it has been explained in last chapter 5, the resource associated with the tank from which the auctions get more revenue is the grass, after come the fish and the trees. But people has not reflected so much the importance of the grass in their responses, however, fish has been the second item mentioned by frequency (by 61% of the population). What has happened is that people have expressed those uses of the resources of the tank which are more important or more familiar for them. So, when people think about grass, most of them think about grass used to construct roofs. It is important to say that when the interviewed people speak about auctions, they specified that the benefit is used for the common purpose of the village.

‐ 115 ‐


The silt, the other resource form the eri, has been mentioned also for its specific uses: to use it as manure in the land, and to get employment with the NREGA rehabilitation program, where the work consists in extraction of silts.

From these 15 main items, 10 are specific forms of utilitarian uses of the resources of the tank:

⋅ Crops ⋅ Drinking water for cattle

⋅ Irrigation ⋅ Drinking water

⋅ Washing clothes

⋅ Trees for firewood

⋅ Bath ⋅ Grass for the roof ⋅ Silts for manure

⋅ Auction of the fish Among the elements mentioned by more than 2 persons but less than 14 we can found (see table 9 general):

⋅ Those related with employment generation and the livelihood of the village, like the NREGA, the agriculture and the increment of production.

⋅ Those related with biodiversity, like plants, birds, crabs…

⋅ Those related with the climate and the way that it is believed that the tank and the surrounding vegetation is influencing it, like the shadow of the trees, temperature and that the attraction of the rain by the trees.

Among the 21 tail elements that have been mentioned we can see the following (see table 9 general):

⋅ There are some uses related to the domestic ambit and to residual and rare uses, like fruits, soil, to get liquor from the trees, male’s toilet…

⋅ There are elements and functions less utilitarian, more related to biodiversity or ecological functions. These ecological functions, like prevention of floods and to avoid the soil erosion, were told only by 4% of the people.

⋅ There are some uses related to leisure and to the socio‐cultural functions of the tank, like to learn to swim, festivals, leisure space…

‐ 116 ‐


Results by categories There have been some differences between the groups of the categories, overall in the tail elements, but we are going to analyze the significant differences among the main and more frequently quoted elements.

Gender analysis (see annex 5)

Although women and men mentioned the fish, grass, drinking water for cattle and trees with almost the same frequency, men are who give more importance to them quoting them some places before than women. However some specific uses of the natural resources of the tank that could be classified as domestic uses, such as washing clothes or firewood are more important for women than for men (it means to put in an upper place in the list). They are mentioned by the 52% and the 39% of the women respectively and only the 23% of men. The explanation of these differences could be because women, who are mostly the responsible of this kind of domestic tasks, go to the tank mostly with the purpose of doing these kinds of activities, although, in other hand, they are not activities that can be done exclusively in the tank.

Landholding analysis (see annex 5)

The landless people mention the uses from the resources of the eri, like “drinking water for cattle“ and “grass for the roof” in a more important place and with more frequency than landholders. The auctions of fish, grass and trees are sorted higher in the rank among the landholders. The group of landless people normally have less purchasing power than the landholders group, this make them more dependent from the raw materials that can be extracted from the eri, like the grass to construct roofs. The same reason explains the item “auctions”: due to their lower purchasing power, the landless people do not take part normally.

“Irrigation” is much more quoted among the landholders than the landless. The same occurs with the “recharge” function. So, for landholders the allocation items of water related with agriculture are more important than for landless people.

Nanjai / punjai analysis (see annex 5)

The “silts used as manure” have been mentioned mainly by those who have nanjai lands. “Recharge of groundwater” was mentioned with more frequency by nanjai farmers than punjai ones. This can be explained because most of farmers having nanjai lands have wells, and they can have a control of the water level in the tank (through controlling the sluice) and the wells.

The auctions are quoted with more frequency among the nanjai people than among the punjai farmers. It shows, maybe, the difference in the purchasing power associated to nanjai farmers to be able to take the auctions.

Agricultural/non‐agricultural occupation (see annex 5)

The fish is more mentioned and the drinking water for the cattle is considered more important among the people who are working in non‐agricultural occupation.

‐ 117 ‐


The recharge of wells is more mentioned (50% against 18%) and in more important consideration among the people who is working in agricultural occupations (farmer and agricultural labourer).

Irrigation is considered also, as it would be expected, more important by the farmers and agricultural labourer. However it is important to underline that both groups consider the most important the “crops”.

Endiyur‐Attur (Ur/Colony) analysis (see annex 5)

In Attur the natural resources from the eri like firewood, grass for the roof and drinking water for the cattle are more mentioned than in Endiyur. And inside Attur, it is more important in the Colony than in the Ur. It could be related with the proximity of Attur Union Tank to the Colony and Ur, but also, at it has been said, it can be explained by the differences of purchasing power.

Knowledge tests The following document is a compendium of the main results from the knowledge tests made to 109 persons of study villages. We will show these results with the most relevant information, like the highest differences between opinions in different people, or those with more clear significance for interesting results and comments.

From the beginning to question number 11, we pretend to check the knowledge of the people about the tank ecosystem. That is the theory, that proves what the villagers know or not. From question number 12 to question 18, we ask questions about the use and practises that the population really do, to compare their knowledge with their costumes. At the end, we formulate two questions to see the opinion of the people about some interesting themes of the tank ecosystem management.

The next page shows the general results of all the 20 questions, and after we will analyze the questions one by one explaining the general result of the specific question (so the reader will have to look back to the general graphic, and after the most relevant comments concerning the results when we divide the general interviewed population in different groups.

The answers of the interviewed people were evaluated and resumed in two, three or four possible answers. In general, the punctuation goes from 0 to 3, where 0 means that they don’t know or they did completely wrong the answer, and 3, what means the opposite, a very good answer. The intermediary answers were those ones with only part of the answer or not accompanied with a reason or justification. There are some questions whose answer are only divided in three possibilities (0, 1 and 2), and some questions whose possible answers were only “yes” or “not”, and “I know” or “I don’t know”, which are represented by 1 and 0 respectively. To understand the codes and the criteria of punctuation for each question see the knowledge test questionnaire.

‐ 118 ‐


Knowledge test questionnaire 1. What is the difference between the surface water and the ground water for agriculture? Why? (SW/GW)

3: the eri water is the best because it has more nutrients. 2: the eri water is the best but they do not know the reason. 1: they don not know which water is better. 0: the water from the well is better for crops.

2. Is it good to maintain properly the eri for something else apart of agriculture? Why? (GOOD ERI)

0 to 3 it is a mark depending of the quantity of things they say and the quality of the explanation. 0: none. 1: one. 2: two. 3:more than two

3. What do you have to do for a good maintenance of eri? (MAINTENANCE ERI)

The 3 is given when they say to desiltate, to rise the bund, and to plant trees on the bund. The optional correct answers are to keep clean the supply canals and the tanks bed, and not to pollute the tank. 2: they only said two. 1: they only say one.0: they did not say anything.

4. Why is the “dead storage” useful? (DEATH STORAGE)

3: to recharge the groundwater and to keep fish alive. 2: other uses but not to recharge wells. 1: one use but not to recharge wells. 0: they do not know.

5. It is good to have trees and plants on the bund? Why?(TREES ON BUND)

2: yes, because they retain the soil avoiding the erosion and strength the bund. 1:yes, for any other reason. 0: they do not know

6. Do trees of eri influence climate? And the water storage? (CLIMATE TREE & ERI)

3: yes the water stored and the trees in the bund refresh the wind and temperature of the village. 2: only one of the two possibilities. 1: they do not know but they told that the trees are influencing climate in the last question. 0: no

7. When is better to graze the cattle in the eri?(GRAZE CATTLE IN ERI)

2: they can explain properly when the best time to graze is and the restrictions. 1: they know when the best time to graze is but they cannot explain why. 0: They mistake saying a wrong period or they don’t know any restriction.

8.What is the best part of the eri to take the silt to use it as fertilizer? (SILT FROM ERI)

1: the deepest part of the tank, normally in front of the sluice, where the silt accumulates. 0: other response

9. What is the money from the auctions used for?(MONEY AUCTIONS)

3: The money from the auctions is used for common purposes apart for temple festivals. 2: Only for temple festivals. 1: For common purposes. 0: they don’t know about the destination of the money

10. Which festivals won’t be celebrated if the eri disappear? Why? (FESTIVALS DISSAPPEAR)

‐ 119 ‐


‐ 120 ‐

3: the festivals would not be celebrated. 2: only some festival would not be celebrated, which need the eri to be celebrated 1: the festivals could be celebrated but they would have to collect money from the people. 0: there will be no problem for the festivals

11. Do you know any traditional story about the eri?(STORY ERI)

1: yes, 0: no

12. (LANDHOLDER)Do you use silt to fertilize your lands? (USE SILT)

1: yes, 0: no

13. (CATTLE)Where does your cattle go to drink? (CATTLE DRINK)

1: yes, 0: no

14. (GRASS)Where is the grass of your roof coming from? (GRASS IN ROOF)

2: grass. 1: sugarcane. 0: the roof is non vegetal

15. When was the last time you used a medicinal plant from the eri? (MEDICINAL PLANT)

3: they use medicinal plants of the eri very often (this week). 2: they use medicinal plants sometimes (last month). 1: they use medicinal plants from the eri rarely (last year). 0: they never use medicinal plants

16. When was the last time you went to wash clothes to the eri or kulam? (WASH CLOTH/BATH IN ERI)

3: very often in the eri or kulam (this week). 2: only when the eri is full they go. 1: they went before. 0: they never go

17. Have you ever bought anything to the person who took the auction of the trees? (BUY MAN AUCTION TREES)

1: yes. 0: no

18. When was the last auction? What was the resource auctioned? Did you participate?(AUCTIONS)

3: They participate in the auctions. 2: they know the resource and date of the auction but they didn’t participate. 1: They only know the resource or date. 0: They don’t know anything about the auctions.

19. Would be any problem if the eri disappears but you have water supply from other sources? (ERI DISSAPEARS)

3: they would have many problems without the tank and they explain them. 2: They explain some problems without the tank. 1: they would have few problems without the tank. 0: They wouldn’t have any problem without the tank.

20. Who in the village should be in charge of managing the eri? All the village? Nattamai? Panchayat? Nanjai? Punjai? Government? PWD? Why?


.

Gen

eral

resu

lts

0%10 %

20 %30 %

40 %50 %

60 %70 %

80 %90 %

100

%

SW/G

W

GO

OD

ER

I

MAI

NTE

NAN

CE

ERI

DEA

TH S

TOR

AGE

TREE

ON

BU

ND

CLI

MAT

E TR

EE &

ER

I

GR

AZE

CAT

TLE

IN E

RI

SILT

FR

OM

ER

I

MO

NEY

AU

CTI

ON

S

FEST

IVAL

DIS

SAPP

EAR

STO

RY

ERI

USE

SIL

T

CAT

TLE

DR

INK

GR

ASS

IN R

OO

F

MED

ICIN

AL P

LAN

T

WAS

H C

LOTH

/BAT

H IN

ER

I

BUY

MAN

AU

CTI

ON

TR

EES

AUC

TIO

NS

ERI D

ISSA

PEAR

S

Que

stio

n

% o

f pup

ulat

ion

0 1 2 3

Graphic 4. General results of the specific questions of the knowledge tests. Source: own elaboration.

121


1. What is the difference between the surface water and the groundwater for agriculture? Why?

The 20% of the interviewed people think that the water from wells is better for agriculture. The main reason told was that there is less pollution than the water from the tank. The 45% of the interviewed people think that the eri water is better because it has more nutrients than the well water so the crops grow better. The rest of the people were not sure about why the water from the tank was better (19%) or which water was the best for irrigation (16%) (see graphic 4).

People whose occupation is related with agriculture (see graphic 5) (landholders and landless agricultural labourers) think that the surface water from the tank is better for agriculture compared to the villagers that are not related to agriculture. The latter ones think that well’s water is better (maybe because they understand it is more pure) and they did not know how to argue that the surface water is better for agriculture. Thus, we found a significant difference between what agriculture and non‐agriculture labourers think about the quality of water (χ2=9.568; sign=0.023).

Knowledge about quality of surfacewater/groundwater depending on occupation

0%

10%

20%

30%

40%

50%

60%

70%

80%

90%

100%

agricultural occupation non agricultural occupation

3210

Graphic 5. Source: own elaboration from the knowledge test results.

Between the people whose occupation is related with agriculture (see graphic 6), the nanjai farmers think more that the surface water from the tank is better for irrigation. Punjai farmers think also that the surface water from the tank is better even though they are not using it for agriculture. The fact is that nanjai people have some advantage over punjai farmers, because they can use both the surface water from the tank and the groundwater from wells. Moreover, being the punjai lands closer to the eri, the wells have more water than those in punjai lands due to the groundwater recharge effect of the eri. So nanjai farmers can cultivate crops with higher needs of water and they use to be richer than the punjai farmers. It is clear that the best fields for irrigation are the nanjai lands close to the tank.

122


Knowledge about quality of surfacewater/groundwater depending on landholding

0%10%20%30%40%50%60%70%80%90%

100%

landless nanjai nanjai+punjai punjai

3

2

1

0

Graphic 6. Source: own elaboration from the knowledge results.

Despite the apparent differences provided by the chart above, when performing cross tabs and Chi‐square test we do not find a significant difference between the different groups of landholding (χ2=11.462; sign=0.245).

2. Is it good to maintain properly the Eri for something else apart of agriculture? Why?

With this question we pretend to evaluate the importance for the people of the water tank as a useful device for other purposes besides the agriculture, and to evaluate their perception about the relation of the tank with the rest of the ecosystem.

Most of the people could say more than two or three reasons to explain why the eri is good apart from agriculture, and the 30% (see graphic 4) could explain some ecological functions, like avoiding floods, that was the maximum punctuation. Only 24% of the population gave a poor answer to this question, and only 3% didn’t say any valid answer, so this results are suggesting that there is a general perception on the multiples uses and functions of the tank for most of the population in rural areas. For example, they mentioned the natural resources associated to the tank, as fish, grass, firewood, etc. and they mentioned the auctions too. They also said uses like in the tank the people and the cattle can drink, the groundwater recharge from the tank or washing clothes. And even few of them mentioned the prevention of floods function.

It was expected that people whose occupation is related with agriculture should have less punctuation than people who has any other occupation because for them, the agricultural uses of the eri should be the most important. However, this group of people has had higher punctuation than the other (see graphic 7). So, people who are agriculturally related with the eri are more able to identify its ecological functions too.

123


Knowledge about the good things of the eri apart from agriculture depending on the occupation

0%

10%

20%

30%

40%

50%

60%

70%

80%

90%

100%

agricultor other

occupation

3

2

1

0

Graphic 7. Source: own elaboration from knowledge test results.

Also there is a light increment of the correct answer corresponding to the level of the education, but surprisingly in this case the illiterate people have a good mark (see graphic 8), probably because the illiterate people are mostly the old population in the village and they have more experience and knowledge about this.

Knowledge about the good things of the eri apart from agriculture depending on education

0%

20%

40%

60%

80%

100%

illiterate to 2nd 3rd to 5th 6th to 8th 9th to uni

education

3210

Graphic 8. Source: own elaboration from knowledge tests results.

Despite the apparent differences provided by the charts above, when performing cross tabs and Chi‐square test we do not find a significant difference between the different groups of different occupation (χ2= 4.928; sign=0.177) and different education (χ2= 3.870; sign=0.920).

3. What do you have to do for a good maintenance of eri?

This question follows the way of the last question subject, and it proves the knowledge of the people about how to maintain a tank, so we can see at the same time their level of implication about the management and maintenance of tanks.

More than three quarters of the interviewed people (see graphic 4) said that desiltation is good to maintain properly the eri. In both villages of study the negative and positive

124


answers have the same distribution, although it was expected to find positive answers in Endiyur due to the recent rehabilitation activities of Palmyra.

It was expected as well that people who participated in the NREGA doing desiltation would have a higher knowledge about maintenance of the tank, but there is a minimum difference with the people who didn’t.

4. Why is the “dead storage” useful?

A big proportion of people (62%) (see graphic 4) mention that the dead storage is useful to have fish and for other purposes, but practically the 75% of the interviewed people didn’t make a connection between the dead storage and the recharge of the wells. Instead of the expected answers, most of people mentioned that the dead storage would be useful for the drinking purpose of the cattle, because it is easy to see the cattle using the tank for this purpose frequently, although this function is not exclusive of the dead storage, it happens every time the tank has water. The people not related with agriculture were those who did worst this connection: the 90% (see graphic 9) of the people of this group weren’t able to relate dead storage and recharge of wells (groundwater). Thus, we found a significant difference between what agriculture and non‐agriculture labourers think about the connection between the dead storage and the tank (χ2= 6,609; sign=0,010).

Did they say recharge of wells?

0%

10%

20%

30%

40%

50%

60%

70%

80%

90%

100%

Related with agriculture Non related with agricultureOccupation

no

yes


The landholders were who did best that relation, but there are some differences depending on the kind of ownership in spite of not being significant performing cross tabs and Chi‐square test (χ2= 9.716; sign=0.374). First of all, the landowners who don’t have wells didn’t mention the recharge of wells. Those having only nanjai lands have less knowledge about the groundwater recharge, but farmers having both, nanjai and punjai lands are in first place, who mentioned the recharge of wells in a 45% (see graphic 10).

125


Did they say recharge of wells?

0%10%20%30%40%50%60%70%80%90%

100%


landholding

%

noyes


This low results of knowledge about recharge of wells are confronted with the results of the other questions, where the people use to say that “if the level of water in the eri is high, means that the level of water in the wells will be high” and “wells in punjai lands are farther from the eri, so they have less water than nanjai wells”. Maybe we have to consider that the concept of dead storage was difficult to translate and to understand by the people, and that they don’t relate directly the dead storage of the tank although they know the tank is recharging the wells.

The dead storage is the water which has a level below the sluice, so it cannot be used for irrigation, but it still has some other uses like washing clothes, taking baths, drinking water for the cattle... but also is interesting the relation that people can do between eri and wells. Below the level of the sluice the water of the eri is not able to irrigate through the canals, but it is still recharging the wells. To relate the dead storage with the recharge of wells is necessary some knowledge of the groundwater relation tank‐wells. Maybe farmers don’t have hydrogeologic knowledge, but they see when tanks and wells are full or empty and do this relation. This can explain why the landowners who have both punjai lands have more knowledge about this, because punjai farmers are more dependent on wells than nanjai farmers, so they will be more concerned about the level of the water from wells. It is clear that this knowledge of the eri for recharging wells is more related with the purpose of agriculture than with drinking water.

5. It is good to have trees and plants on the bund? Why?

40% of interviewed people (see graphic 4) know that the trees in the bund are strengthening it, and the rest 60% think that that trees on the bund only have the general functions as trees, like the domestic or auction uses.

Those persons who had received an agricultural training from NGOs or have worked in rehabilitation programmes like the NREGA have answered in the 70% (see graphic 11) of cases (17) that the trees in the bund are strengthening it. For that groups, we

126


found a significant difference between what experienced and non‐experienced think about the trees ecological function (χ2= 10.287; sign=0.001).

This shows the relevance of having the opportunity of receiving some formation and experience in these issues, as we will explain in chapter 7.

Knowledge about the capacity of trees to strenght the bund depending on their experience

0%

20%

40%

60%

80%

100%

experienced no experienced

no

yes


The proportion of people who made the relation between the trees and the strength of the bund is bigger among the landholders who have nanjai lands than in the other groups of landholding (see graphic 12). These two groups of people are closely related with the eri due to the irrigation function, meaning that they go often to the bund to open the sluice. Despite of this, we do not find a significant difference between this two kinds of landholding (χ2= 5.108; sign=0.078).

0%10%20%30%40%50%60%70%80%90%

100%

punjai nanjai nanjai+punjai

landholding

noyes

Knowledge about the capacity of trees to strenght the bund depending on the landholding


6. Do trees of eri influence the climate of the village? And the stored water in the eri? Why?

127


We thought in this question because we were surprisingly told by some people about some kind of “cool breeze” created by the presence of some trees and the tank itself. We must think how appreciated is this in an area where during the day the temperature can reach 45º under the shadow. So if there was a kind of awareness of an ecological function of the tank directly related to the welfare of the population in the villages, we wanted to check how many people in the villages agree with this idea.

The results show that the majority of the population (95%) (see graphic 4) said yes when we asked if there was some kind of influence from the trees to the climate in the surroundings. Most of them affirmed that trees attract the rain too, and 57% of the interviewed people think that when the tank is full of water also influences the climate of the surroundings.

As we suspected from the beginning, there were differences in the results of this question among the three villages (see graphic 13). We could notice how the people of Attur Colony, living very closed to the tank (30 meters away) and on the lower lands just below the bund, feel more intensively how the tank is influencing the climate of the village. They say that during low rainfall years, when the tank doesn’t have a lot of water, the climate in the village is much hotter and dry, and they cannot feel the “cool atmosphere” what they told comes from the tank. In the case of Attur Ur, which is also near the tank (60 meters away) but on one side, the affirmative responses were also notable. However, we can see how Endiyur don’t feel this influence so much, because they are situated quite far from both tanks (100 and 200 meters).

Performing cross tabs and Chi‐square test we do not find a significant difference between the villages (χ2= 6.286; sign=0.392), being not possible to conclude that the differences in perception are in this case explained by the membership to one village or another.

Knowledge about the influence of trees and water from the tank to the climate depending on the village

0%10%20%30%40%50%60%70%80%90%

100%

Attur Colony Attur Ur Endiyur

Village

%

3210


7. When is better to graze the cattle in the eri? Why?

This question pretended to verify if the villagers in general know the restrictions related to the natural resources associated with the tank.

128


In general, 73% of the interviewed people (see graphic 4) think that the cattle should graze in the tank in the dry season, but when we asked why, if there was a kind of restriction, only the 33% of the people know it properly and explain that these restrictions are because the grass has to be used for the auctions. The 40% of the rest of these people know that there is some restriction or that the grass is need for the auctions, but they can not situate the restriction in time. Finally, the 27% do not remember any restriction or they say that the best time to graze the cattle in the eri was the rainy season. We must explain here that although the grass looks very green in the during the rainy season, it is very difficult to graze the cattle there because the tank is full of water and the green grass (mostly Saccharum sponteneum) growing at that time is really hard and sharp to be eaten by the livestock.

Surprisingly, there is no any relevant difference (see graphic 14) in the level of knowledge answering to this question for the people who have cattle and the people who don’t own any animal (χ2= 2.813; sign=0.245).

Knowledge about the best time to graze in the tank depending on the cattle possesion

0%10%20%30%40%50%60%70%80%90%

100%

with cattle without cattle

cattle possesion

210


8. What is the best part of the eri to take the silt to use it as fertilizer?

This question wants to check the level of knowledge of the villagers of one of the important natural resources of the tank ecosystem, and if they know deeply how it should be used. Most of people know that silt from the tank is used as manure, but due to the introduction of very cheap artificial fertilizers, this resource is being abandoned by the farmers, so we wanted to see how many people still know specific aspects of the exploitation of silt. Furthermore, answering correctly to this question they demonstrate that they know ecological processes, because they have to know that the organic matter and nutrients are being swept and accumulated by the flowing water in the deepest part of the tank to create the silt.

The 80% of people (see graphic 4) know perfectly where is the best place to extract the silt to use as manure, so most of the people know that the water which arrives to the eri is sweeping some nutritious materials that are deposited in the deepest part. In general, people whose occupation is related with agriculture (see graphic 15)have

129


given more correct answers in comparison to the people who have other occupations. In the cross tabs and Chi‐square test it could be found a significant difference (χ2=13,656; sign=0,000)

Knowledge about where the silts should be taken from the eri depending on the relation with agriculture

0%

10%

20%

30%

40%

50%

60%

70%

80%

90%

100%

related with agriculture non related with agriculture

no

yes


Significant difference (χ2=9.549; sign=0.023) can be found also depending on the landholding (see graphic 16). Punjai farmers are the group who has told the correct answer in minor proportion. In the same way, punjai farmers seem to use the silts on their lands in minor proportion than landowners who have nanjai lands. That is because their lands are closer to the tank, so the cost of transport (which is one of the main important using silt as manure) is less than in punjai lands, which in general are further. Agricultural labourers are contracted for the purpose of doing the work of extracting the silts from the tank, transporting and distributing them in the land, which made this process more costly than using artificial fertilizers. Half of the farmers who know the correct answer were landowners who have been using the silt during the last years.

130


Knowledge about where the silts should be taken from the eri depending on landholding

0%10%20%30%40%50%60%70%80%90%

100%

landless nanjai punjai+nanjai punjai

landholding

% yesno


9. What is the money from the auctions used for?

We can check with this question if the people know the common economical benefits from the auctioned natural resources of the tank ecosystem,

90% of the interviewed people (see graphic 4) know that the money obtained in the auctions was used to fund temple festivals. The 35% of the people interviewed know also that the money from the auctions may be used for common purposes of the village too (like repairing the school for example). The 55% only know that the money is used for temple festivals, and the 8% of the people doesn’t know specifically what the destination of the money is, but they know that the money is expended for common purpose. Only the 2% of interviewed people do not know anything about what is the money from the auctions of the eri used for, and they were children.

In general, people of Endiyur have more knowledge about what is the use of the money from the auctions and they know in the opposite way more about how the common structures of the village are financed. In Attur (both Ur and Colony) (see graphic 18), only the 20% of the interviewed people know that the money from the auctions is used for temple festivals and other common purposes, in Endiyur is the 45%. There is a fewer number of village facilities in Attur than in Endiyur, so maybe people does not have the feeling that there is some investment from the auctions. If we analyze the differences between Endiyur, Attur Ur and Attur Colony(see graphic 17), we find a higher significant difference (χ2=15.164; sign=0.019) than in case to consider Attur as homogenous group (χ2=7.755; sign=0.051) because the people of Attur that doesn’t know about the use of the money of the auctions seems to be mainly in the Ur.

131


Knowledge about the uses of the money from the auctions depending on the village

0%

10%

20%

30%

40%

50%

60%

70%

80%

90%

100%

Endiyur Attur Colony Attur Ur

3

2

1

0


Knowledge about the uses of the money from the auctions depending on the village

0%

20%

40%

60%

80%

100%

Endiyur Attur

3

2

1

0


We can speak as well of a difference answering correctly to this question among the people who have participated in management actions or the people who assists to the gramma sabhas (see graphic 19)influencing the management. In this case, we can see how the people with more experience in management know better the destination of the money from the auctions but statistically, performing cross tabs and Chi‐square tests, it couldn’t be find a significant difference (χ2=2.849; sign=0.416).

132


Knowledge about the uses of the money from the auctions depending on participation in Gramma Sahba

0%

20%

40%

60%

80%

100%

Has participated inGramma sahba

Has not participated inGramma sahba

3

2

1

0


Apart from this, we couldn’t notice any other significant difference between different groups of people responding to this question. We thought that maybe there was a difference depending of the gender, but finally the responses are practically the same.

10. Which festivals won’t be celebrated if there was no eri? Why?

This is one of the questions that we made trying to reveal the importance of the tank for the population, in this case affecting the culture and traditions of the village. However, the results were really surprising: only two persons answered that the festivals wouldn’t be celebrated if the tank disappears. The rest of the people (more than 98%) don’t think that festivals would be so affected (see graphic 4). Just 7% of the villagers say that only some festivals wouldn’t be celebrated due to the disappearance of the eri, and the 35% said that the festivals could be affected in their funding a little for this reason. The majority of the population (56%) says that there would be no difference in the festivals without the tank.

All this can be explained for three reasons: firstly, the money from the auctions of the common natural resources doesn’t represent a real great quantity compared to the total amount of money that they spend in the festivals, and second, the villagers think that festivals are taking place everywhere, not only in villages with tanks, and those people finance these festivals with other methods. And finally, the last reason is that the people are only thinking in the economical function of the tank to take money for the festivals, even when they answer saying that the festivals may be affected by the disappearance of the tank. They don’t make the second relations of the dependence to the tank of the whole population to survive and to get all the other functions which permit the development of the village. They think they can get funds for the festivals from their savings, but they forget that they have work and the agriculture can develop there thanks to the existence of the tank.

It is also interesting to underline here the difficulty for the villagers to imagine the village without tank. Even when we explained several times the question, it was very difficult for the people to imagine the abstract idea of a village without the services that

133


the tank offers (as the most, they imagine the tank without water, like in a drought period). This problem in the surveys is repeated again later, and very important to say, it reflects also the high level of integration of the tank in the life of villagers.

Apart from this general appreciation, we can observe that there are some differences in the answers between the difference villages (see graphic 20). In Attur’s villages there are less people who think that nothing happens to the festivals if the tank disappears. It may be because Attur is in general poorer than Endiyur, and they depend more on the money from the auctions of the resources to finance their festivals.

Knowledge about the influence of the tank on the celebration of festivals depending on the village

0%10%20%30%40%50%60%70%80%90%

100%


Village

3210


Despite the apparent differences provided by the chart above, when performing cross tabs and Chi‐square test we do not find a significant difference between the villages in the knowledge about the influence of the tank on the celebrations of festivals (χ2=10.202; sign=0.116).

11. Do you know any traditional story about the eri?

This question continues with the enquiry on the cultural knowledge related to the tank. We thought that we could check this relation by asking something about domestic cultural knowledge, so we thought that maybe the traditional stories of villagers could contain some relation with the tank. However, we must say that we were completely wrong in this case, because finally practically nobody (96%) (see graphic 4) could remember any story about the tank. One of our first interviewed persons, when we were checking the questions to include in the final list in the survey, knew a traditional story about the tank, so we decided to continue asking about this. Now we know that there are some stories about the tank in the villages we studied, but in general the people didn’t know about them or they are not use to tell traditional stories.

12. Do you use silt to fertilize your lands?

We asked this question only in the case of the interviewed person is a farmer with lands. We wanted to check if the farmers were using this natural resource from the tank; apart of knowing that it can be used as manure (we must remember the results from question number 8).

134


48% of the interviewed farmers (see graphic 4) are using the silt to fertilize their lands, what means that half of the population still use this natural resource offered by the tank, (or that half of the population has stopped using the silt). It would be very interesting to have the evolution in time of the pattern of use of silt as manure, but we couldn’t get such a data. Instead of this, we can analyze this information between the different landholders (see graphic 21): as we expected, those farmers owning nanjai lands use more the silt as manure than the farmers having only punjai lands. We must remember that the use of silt depends a lot on the distance from the tank to the fields where the silt will be used as fertilizer but statistically, performing cross tabs and Chi‐square tests, it couldn’t be found a significant difference between landowners with nanjai land and landowners with punjai land(χ2=3.312; sign=0.191).

Landowners using silts as manure

0%10%

20%30%

40%50%60%

70%80%

90%100%

nanjai punjai nanjai+punjai

landholding

noyes


13. Where do your cattle go to drink?

With this question we could check the use of the tank by the villagers having domestic

check if there is some difference between the people

animals for the livestock needs.

65% of the people (see graphic 4) tell that they use the tank to bring their cattle to drink when it has water. We wanted tohaving more or less cattle, because we were told that people having few heads of livestock don’t go to the tank to drink. Effectively, people owning more than 7 animals go often to the tank with the cattle to drink (see graphic 22). We couldn’t notice any difference in this survey with the people having less than 7 heads of cattle, because all of them act as a homogeneous group, where having livestock doesn’t represent an important part of their work, and 60% of all of them go to the tank for this purpose. But, performing cross tabs and Chi‐square tests, it couldn’t be found a significant difference between the different groups of people who have different number of cattle heads (χ2= 1.850; sign=0.604).

135


Drinking of cattle in the eri depending on the number of cattle owned

0%

20%

40%

60%

80%

100%

1 to 2 3 to 4 5 to 6 >7

number of heads

noyes


14. Where is the grass of your roof coming from?

This question wanted to check how many people was still using the traditional roofs made of grass form the tank, which is one of the main natural resources of water tank ecosystems exploited by the villagers.

The 50% of the interviewed villagers (see graphic 4) who had the roof made with vegetal material (the 60% of the total population) used the grass from the tank to construct the roof. Attur Colony is the village which uses more the grass of the eri to make roofs.

In general, although it is not a scientific indicator, we can say with confidence that the proportion of traditional houses with the roof made of grass in one village reveals its economic level. For example, Endiyur had a lot of modern houses made with bricks and cement, and Attur Colony, village of dalits, has only three or four modern houses like that, all the rest are traditional ones. In the graphic we can see these differences between the villages using grass for the roofs.

Nowadays, there is a vegetal alternative to the grass for the roofs, the sugarcane leaves taken from the rest of the harvest, a cheaper material in general but with a shorter life. It is also very common to construct stalls for the cattle. These sheds and the little huts besides some houses used as kitchens have been considered like grass used for roofs in the survey. We can see how in Endiyur (see graphic 23) the proportion of people using sugarcane is quite high, due to the quantity of landowners having sugarcane in their lands. Opposite to this, in Attur Colony, where the proportion of sugarcane is lower, there are less landowners, with smaller lands situated mostly in punjai, and the farmers don’t grow normally so much sugarcane.

It could be found a significant difference between the villages in the use of the grass for the roof (χ2= 19.686; sign=0.001).

136


Use of the grass for the roof depending on the village

0%10%20%30%40%50%60%70%80%90%

100%

Endiyur Attur ur Attur colony Attur

grasssugarcanenon vegetal


15. When was the last time you used a medicinal plant from the eri? Which ones?

We wanted to see how often they use the traditional medicines coming from the tank, but we found that most of the people (59%) say that they use only modern medicines (see graphic 4). Only 24% of the population normally uses the medicinal plants coming form the tank, and the rest (17%) use them but not very frequently. Between different gender and age of the population also there are no relevant differences. However, children could remember more plants used by their family as medicine (74%), so it may mean that for the interviewed people is difficult to remember such things during the tests.

16. When was the last time you went to wash clothes or take baths to the eri or kulams?

Thanks to this question we can see how often the people make use of the tank or the associated water bodies to do these domestic and leisure uses.

The 40% of interviewed population (see graphic 4) use very often the kulams and the tank when they have enough water to wash clothes and to take baths. There is no gender difference because we asked in the same question for the bathing use and for the washing of clothes use. As well, there are not significant differences between the people having well in the land and the people who don’t have, even though many people is using the wells in the lands and the irrigation canals to wash clothes and to take baths.

17. Have you ever bought anything to the person who took the auction of the trees?

Now we ask questions related to the auctions of the natural resources related to the tank, to see the importance of the actions in the life of villagers. In this case, the auctions of the trees of the tank can be about firewood or fruits, and we exclude the auction of the tamarind trees of the road.

87% of villagers (see graphic 4) don’t buy products to the person who is exploiting the trees of the tank ecosystem, although 92% of the population uses firewood for cooking. They take the wood by their own, and the wood taken from the auctioned trees is

137


mainly sold outside the village. For the other products taken from the trees like fruits, the collection is made to sell them in the market, but normally not to the villagers inside the village where they were taken.

18. When was the last auction? What was the resource auctioned? Did you participate?

The villagers can demonstrate their knowledge about auctions with this question, and also we can see what level of participation in the auctions of the different people of the village is.

In general, the 42% of the interviewed people (graphic 4) cannot answer correctly anything about the auctions. The 17% of the villagers only knows the date of the last auction, or what kind of resource was auctioned last time and the 23% of people knew both things, but they did not participate in the auction. Only the 18% of the interviewed people had participated in the last auction.

In this case there are some differences among gender (see graphic 24), because although it is not forbidden, women in general do not go to participate in the auctions (we could see only three women in the auctions of the tamarind trees). Only the 3% of women interviewed has ever participated in an auction, opposite to the 37% of men. Moreover, the 55% of the women do not know anything about auctions being in men the 22%.

Performing cross tabs and Chi‐square test it could be found a significant difference between genders (χ2= 40.955; sign=0.000).

Knowledge and participation in auctions by gender

0%

10%

20%

30%

40%

50%

60%

70%

80%

90%

100%

female male

3210


It is possible to notice as well differences among the population whose occupation is related with agriculture and those who are not related (see graphic 25). The agricultural workers have much more knowledge about the auctions and they participated more in them (practically double proportion of people) than the people who are not related with agriculture, what means clearly that the people dedicated to agriculture is much more involved with the exploitation of the natural resources related to the tank ecosystem.

138


Performing cross tabs and Chi‐square test it could be found a significant difference among the occupation (χ2= 8.191; sign=0.042).

Knowledge and participation in auctions depending on relation with agriculture

0%

20%

40%

60%

80%

100%

related with agriculture non related with agriculture

occupation

3210


The participation in the auctions reveals the purchasing power of the different people in the village. Only those villagers with real opportunities of being the highest bidder of the auction of some resources participate in the auctions, so in general the poorest people of the village don’t attend the auctions. The graphic 26 about landholding reflects this tendency, where the landless people are less related with the auctions than the landholders, and those farmers owning lands in nanjai (the irrigated lands) are the group of people with highest knowledge and participation.

Despite the apparent differences provided by the chart bellow, when performing cross tabs and Chi‐square test we do not find a significant difference between the different groups of landholding (χ2= 10.692; sign=0.297).

Knowledge and participation in auctions depending on landholding

0%

20%

40%

60%

80%

100%


3210


139


19. Would be any problem if the eri disappears but you have water supply from other sources? Why?

This was one of the questions we had more difficulties to explain to the interviewed people. The idea was to try to see if the villagers think that they need the tank for something else apart from the water supply. The problem, as we explained in the question number 10, was that for villagers is very difficult to imagine the village without tank. Also it was difficult to explain the other sources to get water in case that the tank disappears, like having water from a dam and supplied to the village by a tube. We must say that this question is better answered then by the people who could understand better the question.

The results show that 28% of the population (see graphic 4) doesn’t think there would be any kind of problem if they still have water supply form other sources. The 26% think that there would be some problems, but they don’t explain them. The 25% of the interviewed people explain some of the problems associated to the disappearance of the tank, and finally, 22% of them think that they would have serious problems without the tank explaining some of them. Examples of problem mentioned were the loss of the natural resources, the loss of a place for a domestic and livestock uses and the absence of the ecological functions carried out by the tank device as avoiding floods or recharging wells.

The only notable difference of answers to this question we could see comparing the different villages studied (see graphic 27). In Attur Colony there are more people with the highest punctuation (42%) than in the other two villages. Definitively, this village has a perception of more dependence with the tank, maybe because they are poorer and they live very close to the tank compared to the other two villages.

Despite of this, statistically, it couldn’t be found a significant difference between the villages (χ2= 10.757; sign=0.096).

opinion about problems without the thank depending on the village

0%10%20%30%40%50%60%70%80%90%

100%


3210


140


20. Who in the village should be in charge of managing the eri? All the village together? Nattamai? Panchayat? Nanjai farmers? Punjai farmers? Government? PWD? NGOs? Others? Why?

Finally, we wanted to see the opinion of the villagers about which stakeholders are they associating with the tank (see graphic 28), who should have the power over the tank and the rights and the duties to manage it. We also asked this question to some of the managers during the survey, like members of the Panchayat and Nattamais. The results were really interesting.

29% of the population (the biggest group) think that all the village together should take action to manage the tank, what is a very democratic answer and a demand of the rights to manage their own resources in a local and participatory way (an also means decentralization). The second biggest group of answers is also very interesting to analyze, because it is in some way the opposite idea of the first answer. Many people relate the management on the government, because they say that they have the money to maintain the tank, and they may think that the government is more active and more expert in the maintenance duties. We think also that the high hierarchical feeling of the Indian society in general, makes them to leave traditionally the management rights to higher castes (and now classes). And lately, the government has been implementing the NREGA programme repairing the tanks, so many people now think that the government is making an active management of tanks. Some confusions are that, when some villagers think that the government gives money to maintain the tank, they forget that money is coming from the taxes of all the population, so it is not an external income of funds. And maybe, there is a confusion with the NREGA, because the purpose of this recent programme is to create employment, it is not focused on the rehabilitation of tanks, although that now it is working on the necessary and urgent repairs of tanks (in fact, it is really much cheaper and efficient to rehabilitate the tanks with heavy machinery, instead of employing many people with un‐skilled work).

17% of the population thinks that the nattamais are the best managers of the tank. In the case of Endiyur and Attur Ur, the nattamai represent a local manager of the village, and they are not representing any political party and not receiving any wage for his duty, what is an advantage in the opinion of many people. In Endiyur also the nattamai is elected every year, changing between the different groups of the village. There are an important number of villagers (15%) who think the Panchayat should be the managers of the tank. Their reasons are that it is a local institution recognised officially by the rest of external institutions like the government, and they are elected democratically.

The PWD has been also mentioned by some people to manage the tank, because they think is a department formed by technicians and specialized in this themes, and are part of the government, giving money to repair the tanks.

There were three persons who gave an interesting answer: they choose that all the categories proposed to manage the tank should participate together at the same time, not leaving some of them outside of the management. When they said this answer after enumerating all the examples of managers during the question formulated by us, it sounded like an “easy” answer to the question, for not to think very much and choose one answer, but also can be thought that they really were thinking in a coordinative management where all the stakeholders are important and should take part.

141


Finally, there were only two persons who choose the nanjai farmers as the best managers of the tank (they were nanjai farmers). This answer is maybe the most important of all, because these low results represent the incoherency between the current policy of leaving the management rights of the tank to the WUA (Water Users Associations) formed only by the nanjai farmers, leaving all the other local stakeholders outside the management and the people’s perception in these study cases. When people were asked why they don’t choose the farmers to manage the tank, they said, in some cases, on their own words, that farmers are too selfish to carry on this task alone.

Opinion about who should be the manager of the tank

29%

21%17%

15%

5%

3%3%

1%1%1%2%

2% All the village

Government

Nattamai

Village panchayat

PWD

All cathegories together

ns/nc

Nanjai farmers

Palmyra (NGO)

Totti

Nanjai+punjai farmers

All the village+government


If we see the results divided among the three villages (see graphic 29), we can see clearly that Attur Colony doesn’t want the nattamais as managers of the village. It is easy to understand this response because all the nattamais of Attur are living in the Ur and the scheduled castes are not represented by any of the 5 nattamais, apart of the current conflict due to the auctions of the natural resources between the nattamais, representing the Ur, and the Pachayat, whose president represents the Colony. In the Colony also there was a person who chooses the thotti (see chapter 3) as the best manager of the tank, maybe because thotti is a dalit in charge of doing some tasks controlling the tank.

In Endiyur two persons chose the NGO Palmyra, one student whose family has a lot of lands in nanjai (Palmyra worked mostly with nanjai farmers), and the president of one Woman Pattadar Group formed by Palmyra. Performing statistically analysis (cross tabs and Chi‐square test) it couldn’t be found a significant difference between the villages (χ2= 31.929; sign=0.129).

142


Opinion about who should be the managerof the tank depending on the village

0%

10%

20%

30%

40%

50%

60%

70%

80%

90%

100%


village

All thevillage+governmentPalmyra (NGO)

Totti

Nanjai+punjaifarmersNanjai farmers

ns/nc

All cathegoriestogetherPWD

Village panchayat

Nattamai

Government

All the village


Final remarks Apart from the explanations given to describe the different answers to the test given by the different people in the survey, we must say that we could not see many significant differences in the answers about knowledge between the people with formal education and the people without. Most of the people older than 40 or 50 years are illiterate, but they have a lot of knowledge due to their experience. In general, as we will explain in the chapter 7 of conclusions, we noticed that the people with experience in management task (not only at formal levels), or involved in some active groups like Self Help Groups, are people who answer better to this test independently of their formal education. Of course, the personal character of the interviewed person like the intelligence and shyness, or the specific conditions of the surroundings during the survey, affected intensively the quality of the interviews.

Pilesort The pilesort analysis gave to interviewed people the opportunity to put into relation some items of the water tank ecosystem represented in pictures made on cards. They were asked to do “piles” of items, associating elements in whatever way they desire, and after they had to give reasons for their elections. With these answers a graphic of “proximity” of the elements of the tank ecosystem was done. The objective was to know how they perceive the ecosystem and the way of how are they relating different elements composing the ecosystem, to evaluate finally if they have an integrated perception.

143


The results analyzed come mainly from the general graphic (see graphic 30) considering all the 44 interviewed persons in the three villages, but some of the comments also come from the results of the graphics in annex 5 where some categories of people were analysed separately to check the different answers between social groups.

First of all, it should be mentioned that there is a general trend by the interviewed people to create visually recognizable groups of items (like grouping the cards with similar colours), even among categories, overall in those cards where there are few differences, because it is difficult for some of them to appreciate small specific details.

Bath

House

Man

Woman

Festival

Nattamai

Government

Flood

Games

Firewood

Auctions

Cattle

Washing clothes

Birds

Kulams

WellDrinking water

Medicinal plants

Trees

-1,5

-1

-0,5

0

0,5

1

1,5

2

-1 -0,5 0 0,5 1 1,5 2

BathHouseManWomanFestivalNattamaiGovernmentFloodRainGamesFirewoodAuctionsCropsSiltCattleWashing clothesBirdsOdaiKulamsFishWellDrinking waterGrassCanalsERITreesMedicinal plantsGW recharge

Graphic 30. General results. Source: own elaboration from the results of the pilesort.

The general groups of items which can be identified are the following ones:

1. Eri group

The main group of the graphic 30 is the one formed by many elements around the tank. It can be observed two subgroups very closed to the eri. The first suggest an explanation of the way of water, because the hydraulic structures were put together and related with the tank. The second group is containing the agriculture and natural resources, like the grass, which is always nearer to the cattle than to the auctions or the house. Between these resources, the silts are situated closer to the agriculture by the farmers that have nanjai than those farmers who only have punjai lands (see annex 5).

144


This means that the interviewed people think that the main resource related with the tank is the water, but they do not see the tank as an isolated element, it is one more element surrounded by others. At the same time, water tanks are considered a productive resource required not only by agriculture, but also by the fauna and flora associated.

There are two other satellite groups surrounding the tank:

1.1. Groundwater group

Although water is also the connexion between the items of this group, they are far enough from the tank to be considered as a separated group. Kulams and wells are in this group. The function of groundwater recharge is between the wells and the tank but the villagers situated this item closer to the tank, what means that most of them associate this function more directly with the tank. It is clear also that people separate the drinking water from de tank, associating this item with the groundwater devices like wells an kulams.

It is possible that kulams and wells are not seen inside the way of water group, because they are not connected to the surface flows. People can easily see how the tank is not the end of the watercourse, but the interconnections with the wells and kulams are not so easy to realize at a glance.

1.2. General uses group

This group contains the elements and the uses that can be situated in the tank bed but and in other places, like washing clothes, graze the cattle, and natural resources that can be also found outside the tank, like birds and medicinal plants. This means that people relate firstly the tank with the agriculture and after to the domestic uses. Wells are less related with agriculture and domestic uses than the tank. Considering that almost every farmer (punjai or nanjai) has wells in his lands and that the tank irrigation is only supplied for nanjai lands, it was expected that the well would be closer to agriculture, but this only happens with the answers of punjai farmers (see graphics in annex 5), who only can use the wells to irrigate. Women (see graphics in the annex 5 ) also situate the domestic uses closer to the wells than to the tank. The explanation to this can be that all the wells (wells in the village and wells in the lands), are used for domestic purposes mainly by women (being landowner or not).

2. Domestic group

The domestic group, formed by the items man, woman and house, are separated from the group of the tank. Firewood is in the middle of the domestic group and the tank group, because its classification was depending if the interviewed was thinking about the extraction (normally people get the firewood from the trees of the eri) or the use (to cook at home). There is not gender associations of the uses of the tank (like washing clothes and so on), but men use to be closer to nattamai and auctions than women.

3. Management group

The nattamai is separated from the group of the tank, but close to the temple festivals (they lead the temple festivals) and forming a kind of group of management, together

145


with the item “government”. The auctions are in the middle of the management group and the tank group, what means that people relate them with both groups. The government, which is sometimes included in this group, is especially far from the eri. It can reflect the feeling of the villagers about the distance between the tank and the government policies.

4. Non related items

The item “games” is very far away from the rest of things, it seems to be difficult to relate with the rest of groups, even though some people told to us that when it is dry the tank bed can be used as a playground.

In general, the abstract things, and the items related indirectly with the eri like auctions, nattamai and festivals are far from the eri. However the elements and uses that can situated physically in the tank‐bed are closer to the tank.

Knowledge tests analisis: correspondence between knowledge and integrated use of the tank’s elements. This research is interested in the perception of the people about the water tank ecosystems, so the surveys have been checking their knowledge about different aspects of the ecosystem, and their opinion about some questions. However, it is also necessary to check the uses that the villagers have been putting in practise about their knowledge, in order to make a correspondence between the theory in mind of the local population and the practise that they make finally in the water tank ecosystem.

It has been found during the knowledge test different aspects in the correspondence of the knowledge of the people with the use, so they have to be explained in detail:

Most of people knew perfectly what is the silt of the tank used for (as manure), and they demonstrated more than that, explaining where was the specific location to extract this resource. But for the final use by farmers of the silt as manure, we found that half of them don’t use it currently to fertilize their lands. In this case, the explanation seems to be related with the low prices of artificial fertilizers, what makes that only those farmers whose lands are closer to the tank use still the silt, due to the cost of extraction, transport and spread on the fields of this resource to use it as manure.

The tank is a very important device providing services for the livestock. Many villagers having cattle go to the tank, so the animals can drink there, because the water supply inside the village is not enough to cover the high needs of the domestic animals. In case of villagers having a considerable number of livestock (more than 7), all of them use the tank for drinking water supply for the cattle.

All the villagers know that the grass from the tank is used to make roofs. The use of this material finally depends on two things: the type of house and the quantity of sugarcane grown in the lands (which is cheaper than grass). In recent times, it is common to construct modern houses made of cement, and the number of modern houses which don’t use grass in the roofs depends generally on the richness of the villagers. For traditional houses it is needed less investment, but the roof made of grass must be changed every 7‐9 years. However, traditional houses with roofs made of

146


grass are still much appreciated nowadays; because they are much fresher in summer season, so many people have still a house with roof made of grass, even if they already have a modern one. The knowledge about the good quality of roofs made of grass from the tank is much extended (the roof made of sugarcane must be changed every 3‐5 years), but the villagers are not always implementing this knowledge, as it is explained above.

Many people declares that they don’t use medicinal plants or only very few of them. Nowadays, people trust in modern medicine, because medical centres have been introducing in the country gradually. If the villagers have a serious health problem, they go to the doctor, who only prescribes modern drugs, because doctors don’t have traditional knowledge of medicinal plants. But the problem for the people is that hospitals are not free, the service is very unpleasant, and they have to travel to cities to visit the doctor, so villagers just go to medical centres when they have very serious health problems. This means that traditional medicines like medicinal plants should be commonly used to solve most of health problems, and it is known that medicinal plants are mostly given to solve minor health problems of children (children used medicinal plants in a 74%). So, maybe there are not a correct correspondence of knowledge (many villagers could tell a lot about medicinal plants) and use due to mistakes during the tests asking about this kind of knowledge.

Although in the present time wells are very common and they have been increasing in number during the last decades, and the villagers use them to wash clothes and to take baths, the tank is still a very appreciated place by the local population for these purposes, and they continue using it very frequently, so currently wells or other systems don’t represent a threat for this use of water tanks. Furthermore, the tank represents the only real leisure space available in the villages, and it cannot be substituted by other devices like wells.

Respect to the exploitation of the natural resources associated with the water tank, the people still use lots of grass of the tank bed to feed the cattle and to build roofs, and most of them use firewood to cook (93% of the population), even those who have a gas stove. They get the firewood mainly from the trees and bushes of the tank, although they don’t buy normally this material to the person who takes the rights in the auctions of trees of the tank to exploit them. The reason may be that the products from the exploitation of trees from the tank with the rights of the auctions (firewood and fruits) are sold outside the village, because there is no local market for these products in the study cases. On the opposite side, fish and grass from the tank are mainly sold inside the village, because fish must be recently fished to be sold, and the grass has too low price (per volume) to be transported and sold outside the village. So, villagers are definitively making use of the tank’s natural resources, what represent an important part of their life and economy (fish from the tank is still the only seafood contribution to the diet in many villages far from the coast).

The knowledge and use of auctions of the natural resources are more related to the people who are able to participate in them, so very poor villagers don’t know very much about them, and women know about the auctions mostly through their husbands.

147


Now we have explained that the correspondence between knowledge and use of the water tank ecosystem by the villagers has different faces depending on the specific element studied and the kind of group of people in the village. However, we can say for sure that there is a very high correspondence for most of the elements associated with the tank, when the villagers are (economically) able to choose. This means that when there are low values of correspondence between knowledge and use shown by the villagers in some cases, they are in general related to external factors outside the villagers’ control. These external factors can be due to economic decisions mainly, where there are not competition for the external alternatives of use and resources away from the tank ecosystem, like the artificial fertilizers.

Discussion about the integrated perception of the ecosystem and the consideration (or not) of all the uses, functions and roles of water tank ecosystems. The different methods used to evaluate the perception of the local population about the water tank ecosystems have also many varied results that show different faces depending on the interviewed group of people and the concerned theme evaluated.

To explain a global answer to this question, it is necessary to analyze not only the three methods of survey explained above (freelistings, knowledge tests and pilesorts), but also to include all the open interviews to the different persons and the interviews made to the focus groups.

It is necessary to mention that it is extremely difficult to give a simple answer to the question “is there an integrated perception of the water tank ecosystem?”, because it cannot be sentenced completely as “yes” or “no”. If there would be a ranking where there is maximum mark of having integrated perception about the ecosystem, we have to conclude that the interviewed people have in general a medium‐high mark, what means that most of them have some integrated perception of the ecosystem, but they have still some deficiencies. In the following lines it will be explained the reasons for this general mark.

One of the main reasons is that all the villagers have knowledge about the different resources, function and uses of the water tank ecosystem. Nobody of them would think that the tank is an isolated device whose purpose is to store water, although they give more importance to the classical uses of the tank, such as the agricultural purpose or the uses of water. But this is the reality, they are right, because the main purposes of water tanks are those ones. Anyway, the interesting thing is that villagers know as well the other aspects of the water tank, and they give a proportional and correct relevance to each functions and resources of the tank ecosystem. All this arguments are demonstrated in the freelisting method, where the people said a mean number of 8 different elements related to the tank, and there were a considerable high number of different elements mentioned in total by the 54 interviewed persons. The answers to questions number 2 and 19 of the knowledge tests also support this argument, because people could identify many different elements in general.

The results of the pilesort demonstrate clearly that the interviewed people have related most of elements in a big group, with a central item what is the water tank. This also support the argument of the consideration by the villagers of many different elements

148


directly related with the tank, what makes the idea of “ecosystem”. They have demonstrated also surprising capacity of making ecological relations, for example, everybody know that the tank has a recharge function of wells, or that is important to have trees on the bund. Although this society not seems to be distinguished for having in general a culture characterized by a deep relation or respect to the nature (like forest tribes), the villagers are clever enough to understand the limitations and the connections of the different parts of the ecosystem. They don’t allow to do some polluting practises (like washing) in some water bodies like kulams whose purpose is drinking water, and when there are enough resources in the village, one of the important things for them to invest is in the maintenance of water tanks, because they feel is one of the most important structure they have in the village, and it has to be well maintained in order to achieve all the different functions that it has. The current implementation of the NREGA programme in the tanks of our study cases is a good example.

The population has very little economic resources in this part of the world, what creates a relation of dependence to many of the different resources and functions of water tanks ecosystems. People is in general very poor, and they still have to make use of the natural resources offered by the ecosystem, apart of those ones related to the agriculture uses, so they appreciate highly the other services of the tank due to this dependence.

One interesting argument is also the integration of the tank in the life of villagers. In general, they have been all their life with the tank offering its services and they don’t understand the village without tank in such a way that they cannot understand sometimes questions where it is asked the opinion of the village without the water tank.

Finally, the villagers are feeling the water tanks and the associated natural resources as the only common spaces and goods that they have, where all the villagers can be beneficiaries. The system of auctions to share the benefits of the natural resources among all the villagers, and the open access to some services of the tank, such as taking baths, to graze the cattle or to wash the clothes are reflecting this feeling. This communal feeling makes the villagers to consider the tank as a very special and important good, and a central item of the village which everybody is supposed to take care.

As it was theorized in the hypotheses of the project, in the villages it could be observed that different groups of people have different perception of the ecosystem, and it is possible to make some generalities of perception for each group.

The results show that the occupation is a clear factor which determines the perception of the ecosystem. Those villagers whose occupations are related with agriculture (farmers and agricultural labourers) are making much more ecosystemic relations of the territory than the people who have no direct relations with the agriculture in their occupation ‐‐this last group of people living in the village is mainly formed by students, construction workers, housewives (considering only those ones who don’t participate in the agricultural works of the family), drivers, and innkeepers. The proportion of people directly related with the agriculture in the villages is at present time quite high, being almost the 80% of the population. The result is not as

149


obvious as it can be thought from the beginning, because potentially, people related with agriculture could mainly think in uses of the tank exclusively related with irrigation, and the rest of villagers could give much more importance to the other uses and resources of the water tank ecosystem. The explanation to this result is that the experience in the field of the people directly related with agriculture is giving finally a wide vision of the rest of the elements and functions of the water tank. Not only they demonstrate that their knowledge about different themes of the ecosystem is higher, but they also use more the rest of services and resources that the tank ecosystem offers.

Inside the group of people directly related with agriculture, it is also interesting to notice that the landowners have in general more integrated perception than the landless agricultural labourers, although that it can be supposed that they have the same experience working in the fields. But landowners have to do the management of the fields, so they have to take into account some other factors concerning other elements of the tank ecosystem, what creates a more holistic vision.

Among the landowner farmers, there are differences between those ones having lands in punjai, and in nanjai. In general, nanjai farmers get more benefits from the water tank, because they use the surface water for irrigation and their wells are recharged by the tank infiltration rather than in punjai lands (due to the direction of groundwater flows). The nanjai farmers have their lands closer to the tank than the punjai farmers, so they also have more knowledge about the other resources of the water tank.

Landowners, and inside this group nanjai farmers, are the richest people of the village, so they are able to take the rights of exploitation in the auctions of the natural resources of the tank ecosystem, what means that there are also different use of the tank ecosystem depending on the purchasing power. The results show also these differences in the perception of the people of Attur Colony, who is the poorest village of the study. They are more dependent on the natural resources offered by the tank ecosystem, and the other uses of it like washing (for example, in the freelisting survey, the villagers of Attur Colony have a mean number of 8.9 elements mentioned, and the for people of Attur Ur and Endiyur this value is set in 7.4 and 7.9 respectively). This factor of dependency associated with the purchasing power is also mixed with the distance from the village to the tank, which permits (in this case Attur Colony is very close) the villagers to use the rest of goods and services associated with the water tank.

The gender analysis shows the last differences of perception between groups of people in the local population. Women and men have very different roles in this culture, and the results show that their perception about the tank ecosystem changes in some aspects. Women are almost the exclusive group who use the tank ecosystem for purposes like washing clothes and washing vessels, and they don’t participate normally in management tasks. Women also have different tasks in the agricultural works, and they collect more frequently the natural resources of the ecosystem, like firewood, medicinal plants and grass. The difference of perception among men and women shown by the results is in general that, although women use more frequently other uses of the water tank ecosystem, men have a more integrated perception of the ecosystem, because they take care of the management tasks (independently of the level of management).

150


All these conclusions suggest other types of factors affecting the perception among the local population.

The first one is (in the opposite way that it was supposed) that results suggest that people who make more uses of the tank ecosystem, not limited to the uses of irrigation for agriculture for example, like shepherds and women, don’t have necessarily a more integrated perception of the ecosystem. There are not signals of direct relation between use of more elements of the ecosystem and higher ecosystemic perception.

The others revelations taken from the results of the surveys are related with the participation of the people in social processes.

The knowledge and integrated perception of the ecosystem depend highly on the opportunity that has had the person of doing management duties of whatever scale, what give more experience at personal level and as non formal education which permits the person to develop personally in the perception to many aspects of their life, including the perception about the ecosystem. To be able to manage it is necessary not only to know all the managed elements, but also to know the relations between them. That makes an idea why the people with some experience managing have in general a more holistic perception. There are good examples to support this idea in the study. Three persons answered extraordinary well the surveys without having high formal education: the president (woman) of the Village Panchayat in Attur and the son of one old nattamai in Attur (who participates actively in the management of the village), who was the president of one Men Self Help Group; they both have basic schoolar formation. And the president (woman) of Endiyur, who was also president of one Woman Self Help Group, she was illiterate. The women belonging to Woman Pattadar Groups, trained by Palmyra in agricultural practises and managing lands, loans and shops (see chapter 5), also had a very high punctuation in the surveys. The people managing Self Help Groups, are also people with higher marks in the surveys.

The other factor increasing the ecosystemic knowledge and related with the participation is the opportunity of the person of being trained, for example, in educations programmes imparted by NGOs like Palmyra and VCDS, or the participation in the rehabilitation works of the tank, like the current works under the NREGA programme.

151


7

Conclusions

General conclusions The current situation in India is characterized by an extreme economic and demographic growth, which should be related with a development in social welfare and environmental respect. Governments have to act now and take critical decisions in the long term for planning, regulating, allocating and using the natural resources as water . 136

In the search of alternatives for hydraulic systems for water scarcity there have been implemented different solutions in India, but analysis of some of the most widely used and proposed ones will show their deficiencies.

Implementation of big dams has enormous environmental and social impacts, because they are large scale projects. The current analysis of their viability suggest that the systematic faults may be inherent and difficult, if not impossible, to remove137. Social and environmental active movements are fighting against political pressures to implement this large scale projects.

Desalinisation systems give also very limited solutions, given their problems of location only in coastal zones, their high economic cost and expenditure of energy, what makes them also very pollutant nowadays, together with the brine dumping problem . 138

In the present time, the high density of wells and rhythm of water’s extraction in South India have become in overexploitation of groundwater. This practice causes shortages of drinking and irrigation water, and also pollution when aquifers are recharged with irrigation water contaminated with chemicals . 139

In this context, small scale projects like rain water harvesting systems appear as a solution for the water scarcity. Water tanks are very common South India and it should be imperative to promote them, investing and making efforts by the government part to maintain and to rehabilitate them, instead of promoting the last systems explained. These small‐scale systems are easy to manage and management intensity is comparatively high. Small and marginal farmers are much concentrated under these systems 140 , and the integration of water tanks with the rest of the ecosystem makes pressure to take into account the incommensurable values of the elemnts. Water tanks have the great advantage of serving for much other purposes than those limited to the uses of water, as it has been explained during this document.

136 Palanisami, K., 2000 137 Kothari, A., 2000 138 Meerganz Von Medeazza,G. 2007 139 Palanisami, K., 2000 140 Palanisami, K., 2000

152


However, water tanks systems currently are in a period of decay, and they have a lot of problems associated with their performance what affects the whole ecosystem. The causes are due to systematic failures, not only lack of implementation, in the India’s development planning process in general. From the official institutions there is a lack of interest in tank management, even in those places where there are already water tanks, due to an inadequate financial allocation. It can be said that exists a preference for individual well irrigation, reflected on the subsidies for groundwater extraction given to the farmers, which leads sometimes to leave the tank in bad conditions reducing the recharge 141 . There are other problems non directly related with government (most of them mentioned in chapter 2), which are responsible of the deterioration of tank irrigations systems, such as the encroachment, the erosion by weathering action, the operational wear and tear, damage by rodent and pest142, silt accumulation in tank bed and supply channels, and some other minor causes.

Furthermore, all this problems create risk of loss of the economic, social and ecological services that tanks offer. The ecological and social resilience of water tank ecosystems protecting against disturbances is in danger due to the tanks’ decay.

It is imperative a good maintenance of the water tanks structures, in order to reach a correct functioning of the whole ecosystem and the sustainability of the local community. The ecology, economy and society framework is depending on the ecosystem. It is necessary to understand then, that the resource in this case is not land, water or trees in isolation, but an interacting system of all . 143

It is necessary to note that any effort to manage the tank in a more sustainable way must rest on the understanding of the linkages of the different elements of the ecosystem. For this purpose the management should have a holistic view of the whole ecosystem, integrating the different functions, uses, resources and stakeholders. Also it is necessary to integrate the entire range of institutional for developing favourable management strategies.

The integrated management of tank ecosystems becomes a requirement for an integrated approach in the watershed management scale, a concept mentioned by some authors144. At the same time is necessary to have an integrated management of the watershed to reach a suitable integrated management of each water tank ecosystem at local level. The management of watershed scale is necessary due to the cascade connections of water tanks, what creates a shared resource requiring cooperation within and between villages145. In this way, it is pertinent to note that given the intra physic connections with the tank through canals or by the groundwater dynamics, the management of other water bodies like kulams should be considered and integrated in the general management of the tank ecosystem.

141 Palanisami, K., 2000 142 Shanmugham, 2005 143 Pandey D.N., 2000 144 Interview with the director of the NGO Harvest, Gilles Boulicot on th 18thof May of 2007 145 Mosse D., 2003

153


The nature of the networks of water tanks opens the possibility for a decentralized management, which permits autonomy for local operation 146 . These small‐scale systems are also prone to be managed by local population, being the management intensity comparatively high, in a context where there scarcity of resources even for a proper management is very common. Small and marginal farmers are supposed to be much concentrated under these systems. But for these advantages, it is necessary to repeat that the management should be in an integral way, considering all the stakeholders of the ecosystem, requiring cooperation and a proper regulation of water rights and dispute arbitration.

Concerning the associated problem of groundwater overexploitation inside the water tanks ecosystems, it should be mentioned that it is imperative a new regulation in the utilisation of groundwater by way of legislation. The conflict in management issues between the groundwater and surface water for irrigation in the tank ecosystem, seems to be focused in the need of a collective action in tank management in front of the individual use and free access of groundwater nowadays (aggravated by the subventions from the government to extract groundwater without limitations). The conjunctive use and management of surface water and groundwater is one of the main gaps in the current situation, which doesn’t let an optimum development and utilization of water resources. The conjunctive operation results also in economic yield as it provides more water and lower average cost147. The “artificial” recharge of water tanks to augment groundwater resources is a fundamental consideration to manage the water tank ecosystem in a integrated way.

Finally, we must say that the conjunctive use management of surface and groundwater, the current participatory management programmes consolidated in an effective way, and the combination with other programmes like poverty alleviation schemes are on the proper of the solution. However, it is imperative the creation of public awareness by government programmes and independent organizations on the local population, in order to reach an authentic feeling of self‐reliance and capacity of management with an ecosystemic vision.

One of the current problems causing water scarcity and low self‐reliance of the population in South India, affecting also the water tank ecosystems, is the cropping pattern. It is commonly based in commercial crops like rice and sugarcane with an extremely high consumption of water (it takes some 5000 litres of water to produce 1 kg of rice148. Farmers growing these crops for commercial use are also dependent on the external market for their survival, which can change due to external decisions and variations of the globalized world, out of the local population control. There are many other alternative crops, which are drought resistant and suitable for growing in the area, apart of being very nutritive. And the agricultural practises with water conservation techniques, like the long‐demonstrated effective sprinkler and drip irrigation, are quite easy to implement. The problem is that there are not incentives from the Public Administration to save water currently, so farmers don’t change in

146 Mosse D., 2003 147 PWD, 2002 148 Palanisami, K., 2000

154


their culture of wasting water in waterlogging irrigation practises, and the change in the types of crops grown.

Conclusions from our study cases In the study cases of this research, it has been evaluated the perception of the local population about their ecosystem, in order to compare it with the current management and to see the correspondence of this relation. Here it is important to say that the study has been characterized for the evaluation of a very abstract concept such as the perception (or awareness), what makes it difficult to evaluate, and to give a definitive general answer.

As we thought in the hypotheses of the research, the perception of the local population varies depending on the social group referred. As we explain in the discussion of chapter 6, there are six main social groups what determine the perception of the local population, although some of them are mixed or one person can belong to some groups at the same time:

1. Occupation: the clearest differences in perception are given by the direct relation of the villagers in their job with the agriculture. Farmers and agricultural labourers have a wider vision and knowledge about the water tank ecosystem than villagers with other occupations.

2. Landholding: farmers owning lands have in general a more integrated vision than the landless people, who doesn’t make management works of fields.

3. Nanjai / Punjai farmers: the location of the lands respect to the tank changes the perception of the farmers respect to some ecological processes and resources of the water tank ecosystem.

4. Different income: those villagers with more purchasing power are able to participate more in some activities like the auctions of the natural resources of the tank ecosystem. However, the poorer people are more dependent of the uses and resources of the ecosystem, what makes them more aware about the services of the tank ecosystem.

5. Distance to the tank: determines the level of exploitation of the natural resources and uses by the villagers.

6. Gender: women use more frequently more resources and services of the water tank, like washing clothes or collection of medicinal plants. However, males have normally the management tasks, what creates a more holistic vision of the ecosystem in general.

Finally, it can be said that in general, the population from the study cases, considering the different groups of the village, does have quite an ecosystemic perception of the water tank ecosystem where they live, work, get the resources and belong to. This affirmation was explained in chapter 6.

155


Correspondence of the current management with the integral perception of the local population At present time, the analysis made in the study cases shows clearly that the management defers from the ecosystemic perception of the local population, having serious deficiencies. The explanation comes basically from a lack and participation in the management of the different stakeholders of the water tank ecosystem, what results also in a lack of integral consideration by the management of all the resources, uses and functions of the ecosystem.

The stakeholders that should be considered in the water tank ecosystem are:

⋅ Nanjai landowner farmers, because they make use of the main function of the tank, the irrigation.

⋅ Rest of farmers:

⋅ Punjai farmers, because they also get the benefits of the artificial recharge of groundwater from the tank

⋅ Agricultural labourers, because finally the whole agriculture activity depends on the water tank

⋅ Users of fish, trees and grass, which are the main natural resources from the water tank ecosystem and are auctioned sharing the revenue between all the village.

⋅ Users of silt, medicinal plants, birds, firewood and other important resources of the ecosystem associated with the tank.

⋅ Beneficiaries of drinking water, wells, kulams, flood control, biodiversity and all the functions and services available in the village thanks to the water tanks.

This means that finally all the villagers are beneficiaries of the water tank ecosystem, some of them more directly than others, but all of them should be considered in the management.

In the following lines, the management deficiencies found in the study cases will be explained, in order to show the discordance of the current management respect to the ecosystemic awareness.

As it was explained at the end of chapter 5, there are some activities carried out by the villagers that are not regulated by the management, with a high risk of degradation of the ecosystem. Some activities can pollute the water seriously, and there are exploitation of some resources like soil from the tank as construction raw material without control.

It is clear that there is not at all any conjunctive use of the surface water from the tank and the groundwater from wells for irrigation, and the lack of management on this results in problems of abandon of the tank’s maintenance and overexploitation of groundwater, creating water scarcity. The lost of the traditional allocation of water controlled by a special designed person (thotti), also has created a independent use of

156


the surface water of the tank by farmers, instead of a use coming under consensus of the users.

The large distance of Aranguti Eri in Attur, and the property of the irrigated lands of that tank belonging to farmers from other villages, has resulted in a complete thoughtlessness by the local management of Attur. In the present time, Aranguti Eri is in a serious disrepair, and the tank is hardly performing its functions inside the ecosystem. There are no regulation in the exploitation of its natural resources like silt, fish, or even water, and if the bad conditions of the tank continue, they could generate risk of breaching of the bund, flooding the downstream terrains, including Attur Ur.

It could be observed also many encroachments in the water‐spread area of the four tanks of the study cases. The local managers said that the encroachment doesn’t represent any problem currently, but we could check how the encroached lands in the tanks were much bigger than we were told, what means that is a more serious problem than the management is considering. Even thought, in the case of Aranguti Eri, the sluice was broken by someone, probably by some farmers in order to decrease the water level of the tank, so that there is more space to make encroachment on the tank bed.

One of the main problems related with the lack of integral management in our study cases was related with the WUAs. These organizations, created for the villages of Tamil Nadu from 2001 as part of the “decentralisation and participatory management policies” process, are implemented by the Water Resource Organisation (WRO), PWD and NGOs. They are supposed to leave management of the tanks to the local level, but they have resulted to bring new problems. At present time, WUAs are not working at all in many villages of the State (it doesn’t exists in Attur), mainly due to the dependency of the farmers to the government and the extremely low funds for this purpose. The lack of training and motivation of the government officials and the failure of the institutional approach and arrangements are the other considered reasons.

Furthermore, the nature of WUA obstructs the integral management of water tanks ecosystems, because they are formed only by punjai farmers members, excluding all the rest of stakeholders related with the tank from the participation on the management. This exclusions originate management with limited visions of the ecosystem, giving preference only to the irrigations requirements of the nanjai farmers, and leading to a situation of “participatory exclusions”149. In this sense, even the name of the institution supposed to manage the tank is called “Water Users Association”, what gives an idea that the tank is just a water deposit, and the only people in charge of managing it should be the irrigation users. In Pondicherry, the nearest state, the local institutions created to manage the tanks are called “Tank Associations”, and it can be formed by farmers of both command area and non irrigated area and landless people.

There are other reasons to explain the failure of WUAs in our study cases, and they are also related with the “participatory exclusions”: the low community mobilization by the villagers themselves, due to local conflicts of interest between different groups of users and political parties, and the different income based conflicts.

149 Agarwal, B., 2001

157


In the case of Attur, there are more conflicts in the management of water tanks ecosystems due to the lack of consideration of all the stakeholders of the ecosystem. The current conflict among Attur Ur and Attur Colony for the benefits of the auctioned natural resources of the water tanks is caused for the traditional exclusions in the management of the village to the Schedule Castes. They could never participate in the management of any part of the water tank ecosystem, and now, the presidency of the Village Panchayat is assigned compulsory by law to a woman SC, so Attur Colony demands a bigger part of the benefits from the ecosystem.

Finally, it is pertinent to note that an integral management of the entire water tank ecosystem is a reason and a requirement for a “decentralized and participatory management policy”. The reason is that for the participation of all the stakeholders, it is needed the consideration of the tank as an ecosystem, being the proper way to reach a real participatory management. The decentralized management can be only achieved by considering tanks as ecosystems, where the best way to manage them is to include the local population in the management, because they know better than anyone the functioning of the ecosystem which they belong to.

New findings during the project and plans for further studies It may be interesting to emphasize some “discovers” that we didn’t expect to find during the period of research.

New role of Village Panchayat in the tank management

Apart of the more common known roles of the Village Panchayat in the management of tanks, there is a new role in this sense. The active management of the NREGA works is done by the Village Panchayat, and finally they are deciding about the maintenance works of water tanks under this scheme. The NREGA works have been rehabiliting the tanks the last two years in such an effective way never seen before 150 , and the Panchayat is in charge of all this new executions. There is a delegation of power from management institutions above the local level, resulting in more decentralized and local management of tanks.

No signs of dependence of the culture with the tank

The results of the surveys didn’t show any relation of dependence of the traditional culture with the tank, as it can be supposed due to the strong relations of the local population with the tank. Although the tank is still a very useful place in many villages to celebrate the traditional festivals, and some part of the temple funds come from the auctions of the natural resources associated with the water tank, the local population think that they don’t depend on the tank to continue celebrating their traditions, and these traditions are not about tank cultural legacy. They compare themselves to people living in cities, where there are not as many water tanks as in rural areas, and they have the same traditions and celebrations.

150 Interview to Assistant Engineer from Marakkanam Union Panchayat the 17th 5 of 2007

158


Relation of perception with opportunity of management

It could be observed during the research about the perception of the local population about the ecosystem the importance of the informal education and personal experience in the level of knowledge and ecosystemic perception. The participation of the person in management tasks, independently of the scale of management, influenced directly on the ecosystemic perception of that person. Those people who has had the experience of managing whatever aspect of their life had changed their attitude, being much more confident and having the capacity to make decisions considering the relation between different elements, so the ecosystemic perception increase. The opportunity of managing in our study cases could be represented by the recent creation of many Self Help Groups, which manage loans and accountancy, the people who have ever been members of Village Panchayats, the formation of WUA, and the people who have been member of the Traditional Irrigation Institution, like the nattamais in our study cases.

Some other themes observed during this research should continue being studied, in order to answer to very interesting questions related with water tanks resulted from this analysis. However, it is necessary more resources and time to implement further investigations on the field. The new questions proposed are:

⋅ Is traditional management, related to social structures (caste), more responsive to ecosystem consideration than modern management? Is the modern management more subject to the demand of increasingly commercial agriculture?

⋅ Will be the adaptation to water stress take the form of increased conflicts, when it seems it will lead to changes in the crop pattern (away from rice), with debatable effects from the ecosystemic perspective?

159


8

References

AGARWAL, A. Dying wisdom. Rise, fall and potential of India’s water harvesting system. 4th edition. New Delhi (India): Centre for Science and Environment. 1997.

AGARWAL, A. et al. Making Water Everybody’s Business. Practice and Policy of Water Harvesting. 3rd edition. April 2005.

AGARWAL, B. “Participatory Exclusions, Community Forestry, and Gender:An Analysis for South Asia and a Conceptual Framework”. World Development. Vol.29, No. 10, pp. 1623‐1648. 2001

ASHOK, K. et al. Glossary of useful and economically important plants. (Medicinal, nutritive, poisonous and forest plants). First edition. Calcuta (India): New Central Book Agency (P) Ltd., May, 2000.

ASHOK, S. La escasez de agua: una amenaza para la seguridad mundial Ecología Política 1998 núm. 15, p.57 ‐66.

ASIAN DEVELOPMENT BANK, Rehabilitation and Management of Tanks in India. A study of Selected States. Philippines: Asian Development Bank, 2006.

AUROVILLE WATER HARVEST, Profile 2006, August 2006, Unpublished Document.

AUBRIOT, O. and PRAHBAKAR,I., Unrestrained quest for groundwater: what about the more vulnerable? Cases from Tamil Nadu and Pondicherry, South India, Agadir workshop, September, 2006

BARON, J S. et al., Meeting Ecological and Societal Needs for Freshwater, Ecological Applications, Vol. 12, No. 5. (Oct., 2002), pp. 1247‐1260.

BEGON, M. , HARPER, J.L and TOWNSEND,C.R, Ecology: Individuals, Populations and Communities, Third Edition, Oxford (England): Blackwell Science, Ltd., 1996

BENTZ, B. “Historie sociale – Historie technique: Les tanks du bassin versant de l’etang du Kaluvelli (Inde)”. Tutor: T. Gablier. Master of Science Thesis. Centre National d’Etudes Agronomiques des Régions Chaudes, Montpellier, France, 2001.

BORGATTI., ANTHROPAC 4.0 Methods Guide. Natick, MA: Analytic Technologies, 1996.

BRODY, S D. “Implementing the Principles of Ecosystem Management Through Local Land Use Planning”, Population and Environment, Vol. 24, No. 6, pp. 511‐540. July 2003.

BRUNNER, R.D and CLARCK,T.W. “A Practice‐Based approach to ecosystem management”. Conservation Biology, Vol.11, No, 1, 48–58. February 1997.

CERD, Ekoventure, Harvest Auroville Water Service, Tank Rehabilitation Project of Pondicherry Field Manual on Community Organisation for Tank Rehabilitation Project, Project Management Unit, Tank Rehabilitation Project of Pondicherry, Public Works Department, Government of Pondicherry, Pondicherry, January 2002.

160


CENSUS OF INDIA. 1995. Census of India 1991, Tamil Nadu, Delhi: Office of the Registrar General.

CensusInfo India 2001 v.1CENSUS OF INDIA. 2002. ,CD format. Delhi: Registrar General and Census Commissioner.

CESSELIN, F. “Irrigation par Motopompe dans une situation d’usage conjoint tank/puits. Cas du village de tiruvanainallur, Tamil Nadu, Inde su Sud”. Tutor: Olivia Aubriot. Master of Science Thesis. Centre National d’Etudes Agronomiques des Régions Chaudes, Montpellier, France, 2001.

CWROM (Centre for Water Resources and Ocean Management), “Farmers’ Participation in Tank Rehabilitation and Management, A case Study‐ Kedar Tank”, Ford Foundation Funded Research Project on Alternative Approaches to Tank Rehabilitation and Management‐ an Experiment, Anna Univeristy, Chennai, June 1996, p.127

DHAN Foundation. “Neerkatti (A compilation of Case Studies on Neerkattis System in South India)”. Ford Foundation 50th Anniversary Closing Ceremony Events. Madurai Symposium. Madurai (India): March 10th, 2003.

DHAN Foundation. Modernising Traditions. Case of Endaiyur Oorani Rehabilitation. First Edition. Madurai (India): DHAN Foundation, October 2006.

DHAN Foundation. Visions for Tanks of Tamil Nadu, A Strategy for Conservation and Development of Tanks of Tamil Nadu, Institute for Water Studies, Chennai, First Edition. Madurai (India): DHAN Foundation, October 2002.

DHAN Foundation. Lifelines for livelihoods, Reviving Tank cascades: The Nalgonda Experience, First Edition. Madurai (India): DHAN Foundation and The Commissionerate of Rural Development Andhra Pradesh, June 2006.

DISTRICT RURAL DEVELOPMENT AGENCY. Foot Prints of IWDP activities. Viluppuram, Tamil Nadu: 2006.

D’SOUZA, J. The need for an integrated approach. Unpublished document. 2007

EDWARD GRUMBINE, R., What Is Ecosystem Management? Conservation Biology, Vol. 8, No. 1. (Mar., 1994), pp. 27‐38.

ESCOBAR,A, Whose Knowledge, Whose Nature? Journal of Political Ecology Vol.5, 1998

FERAL (Foundation for Ecological Research, Advocacy and Learning). Resource handbook. Planning and monitoring collective local resource management in the Kalivelli watershed. Pondicherry: Foundation for Ecological Research, Advocacy and Learning, 2005.

FUNTOWICZ,S. and RAVETZ,J., La Ciencia Posnormal, Ciencia con la gente, First Edition, Barcelona (Spain), Icaria, May 2000

PAVLIKAKIS G.E. and TSIHRINTZIS, V. A. “Ecosystem Management: A Review of a New Concept and Methodology”, Water Resources Management. No 14. pp.257–283. 2000.

GUNNELL, Y and KRISHNAMURTHY, A. “ Past and Present Status of Runoff Harvesting Systems in Dryland Peninsular India: A Critical Review”. Ambio, Vol. 23, No 4, June 2003.

161


HEATHER L. KEOUGH and DALE J. BLAHNA, Achieving Integrative, Collaborative Ecosystem Management, Conservation Biology Volume 20, No. 5, 1373–1382, 2006

HOOJA, R., PANGARE, G. and RAJU, K.V., Users in WUA: The Andhra Model and its Replicability in India, Delhi: Rawat Publications, 2002.

ICRISAT. “Compendium of Case Studies on Water Conflicts in India. Focusing on on Peninsular.India”. Presented to: The National Policy Dialogue on Water Conflicts in India. Hyderabad: March, 2005.

ICRISAT, National Workshop on Rejuvenating Tanks for Sustainable Livelihoods‐ Emerging Trends. Dates: August 3‐4, 2006, Venue_ ICRISAT Campus, Patancheru, Andhra Pradesh. Organised by WWF‐ICRISAT Project, ICRISAT, Patancheru, Institute for Social and Economic Change (ISEC), Bangalore, International Crops Research Institute for the Semi‐Arid Tropics (ICRISAT), Patancheru and Modern Architects for Rural India (MARI), Warangal

INDIA, National Rural Employment Guarantee Act 2005, The Gazzette of India, New Delhi, September 7 2005, Number 42

INDIA. Tamil Nadu Farmers’ Management of irrigation systems Act 2000, Act 7 of 2001, Tamil Nadu Government Gazzette, March the 5 of 2001, Num. 178, p. 22 th

JANAKARAJAN, S. Working Paper No. 97. In search of Tanks: Some Hidden Facts. Madras: Madras Institute of Development Studies, January 1991.

JANAKARAJAN, S. “Need to Modernize the Tradition Changing role of Tanks in response to Scarcity and Variability”. In: Conference on Market Development of Water & Waste Technologies through Environmental Economics, Delhi 30th‐31st October, 2003.

KOTHARI, A. Environmental and Social Aspects of Large Dams in India: Problems of Planning, Implementation and Monitoring (online). The World Commission on Dams, 2000. Available at Web: <http://www.dams.org/kbase/submissions/showsub.php?rec=ins012>

LACKEY, R., “Seven pillars of ecosystem management”, Landscape and Urban Planning No. 40, pp. 21–30. 1998.

MARTINEZ‐ALIER,J. and ROCA,J. Economia ecológica y política ambiental, First Edition,México D.F.(Mexico): Fondo de Cultura Económica, 2000

MARTINEZ‐ALIER,J The Environmentalism of the Poor. A Study of Ecological Conflicts and Valuation. EdwardElgar, Chentelham, U.K., 2002 (El ecologismo de los pobres), Icaria, Barcelona, 2005)

MCNEILL, J.R. Something new under the sun, An Environmental History of Twentieth‐Century World, W.W.Norton, 2001

MOSSE, D. ”Colonial and Contemporary Ideologies of “Community Management”: the Case of Tank Irrigation Development in South India”. Modern Asian Studies, Vol. 33, No. 2. Cambridge University Press, UK 1999.

MOSSE, D. The rule of water. Statecraft, Ecology and Collective Action in South India. New Delhi: Oxford University Press. 2003

162


MOSSE, D. “Rule and Representation: Transformations in the Governance of the Water Commons in British South India”. The Journal of Asian Studies, Vol. 65, No. 1, February 2006.

MUKUNDAN, T. M. “The ery systems of south India”. PPST Bulletin Num.16: 1988.

PALANISAMI, K. and EASTER, W., Tank irrigation in the 21st Century What next?, first published , New Delhi: Discovery Publishing House, 2000.

PALANISAMI. K, et al. Sustainability of tank irrigation systems in South India. Coimbatore (India):Water Technology Centre Tamil Nadu Agricultural University, Coimbatore. 2001

PALANISAMI, K., PARAMASIVAN,P., CHANDRASEKARAN, B. and KARUNANITHI, S. Participatory irrigation management in Tamil Nadu, Water Technology Center Tamil Nadu Agricultural University, Coimbatore, November 2003.

PALANISAMI, K. et al. Impact assessment of watershed development. Issues, Methods and Experiences. New Delhi (India):Water Technology Centre Tamil Nadu Agricultural University, Coimbatore, Associated Publishing Company, 2006.

PALMYRA. The experiences of Women Pattadar Groups of the Palmyra‐ICEF project in the System of Rice Intensification (SRI). PALMYRA‐ICEF Project. Auroville, Tamil Nadu. 2006

PALMYRA. Rehabilitation of integrated tank management systems in the Kaliveli watershed Villupuram district, Tamil Nadu, final report 1999 ‐ 2006. PALMYRA‐ICEF Project. Auroville, Tamil Nadu. 2006

PANDEY, D. N. “Sacred Water and Sanctified Vegetation: Tanks and Trees in India.” in the Panel: Constituting the Riparian Commons. International Association for the Study of Common Property (IASCP) Bloomington, Indiana, USA, 31 May‐4 June, 2000

PRABHAKAR, P. I.. ʺThe illegal practice of cultivation in irrigation tanks: an approach to legal pluralism through actorsʹ narratives,ʺ in Land Law and Natural Resources Management Comparative Perspectives (Land : lessons and stakes). Edited by C. Eberhart. Pondicherry: Institut Français de Pondichéry., 2007

PWD (Publics Works Department). Ground water perspectives. A profile of Villupuram District, Tamilnadu. State Ground and Surface Water Resources Data Centre, Water Resources Organization, Government of Tamil Nadu. Tharamani, Chennai June 2002.

RAJAGOPAL, A, AND JANAKARAJAN, S., Water rights and participatory irrigation management in India: the case of surface water sector in Tamil Nadu State. Madras Institute of Development Studies, Unpublished document.

RATNA, R. and PRUDHIKAR, How Participatory is Participatory Irrigation Management (PIM)? A Study of Water User Associations (WUAs) in Andhra Pradesh, Begumpet, Hyderabad, India :Center for Economic and Social Studies, Working Paper No. 65 November, 2005

RATNAVEL,S.M and GOMATHINAYAGAM,P. In search of ancient wisdom‐irrigation tanks, First Edition. Madurai (India): DHAN Foundation, October 2006.

163


SAKTHIVADIVEL, R, GOMATHINAYAGAM, P, TUSHAAR SHAH, Rejuvenating Irrigation Tanks through Local Institutions, Economic and Political Weekly July 31, 2004, P. 3521‐3526

SINGH, K. Working Paper 6. The watershed approach to sustainability on renewable common pool natural resources: lessons of India’s experience. Gujarat (India): Institute of Rural Management Anand, February 1991.

SHANMUGHAM, C.R and KANAGAVALLI, J., Technology of tanks, The traditional waterbodies of rural India, First Edition. Madurai (India): DHAN Foundation, August 2005.

SHARMA, Ravi. “Scarcity and struggles. A dispute in the Krishna basin”. Frontline. May 6, 2005, vol 22, p. 31‐33.

SHIVA,V. Earth democracy. Justice, Sustainability and Peace. South End Press Cambridge, 2005

SHIVA, V, Water wars: Privatization, Pollution and Profit, First Edition ,United Status, South End Press, 2002

SUSEELA,P, SOBHANA,D, CHANDRA, K.D, Field work report (from 25.02.06 to 18.03.06) of Endiyur,Tamil Nadu., M.A.Sustainable Development, First Year, Pondicherry University.

VAIDYANATHAN, A. Water Resource Management. Institutions and Irrigation Development in India. First edition. New Delhi: Oxford University Press. 1999

VAIDYANATHAN, A. Tanks of South India. Delhi: Centre for Science and Environment. 2001.

WOLF, A, “Indigenous approaches to water conflict negotiations and implications for international waters”, International Negotiation: A Journal of Theory and Practice, December 2000 (forthcoming)

WORLD BANK. Tamil Nadu Water Resources Consolidation Project, Implementation‐completion report, World Bank, May 31 2005.


http://www.pan‐uk.org/pestnews/actives/monocrot.htm

http://pmep.cce.cornell.edu/profiles/extoxnet/metiram‐propoxur/monocrotophos‐ext.html

164


http://www.pan-uk.org/pestnews/actives/monocrot.htm



water tanks as ecosystemsicta.uab.cat/etnoecologia/docs/[61]-water_tanks_as_ec… · ·...

Documents