Anantapur District

The Timbaktu Collective works for sustainable development in the drought prone Anantapur district of Andhra Pradesh. The Collective focuses on the landless, small and marginal farmers with special emphasis on women, children, youth and dalits. These are the people who are most affected by situations like chronic drought, unproductive land, unemployment and poor infrastructural facilities.

Introduction

 SEDS approached Arghyam to seek advice on the quality of drinking water in the area. Anantpur is the second most drought-prone area in India, and a lot of work has been done to deal with the water supply situation by the Government of Andhra Pradesh as well as NGOs and charities such as SEDS and the Sai Baba Trust, to name a few. There seems to be an adequate supply of water in the district, but very little or no attention has been paid to the quality of water.

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• Factors Responsible for the spread of Fluorosis

• Sources of the injection of fluorides into the Human Bodies

Organizer: Raviji ashram.

Venue: Raviji ashram, Penugonda, Anantapur district.

Topics: 

•  Utilizing agriculture waste for development of humus. 
•  Microbial culture.
•  Minimization of water usage, (Mulching).
•  Minimization of thermal power ( By avoiding water usage).

It also attempted to examine how policy interventions threatened this knowledge base and the sustainable practices it supported.

The discussion paper by Carewater INREM Foundation on possibility of revival of dug wells in hard rock India through recharge is based on a field study across ten districts of the country. The study seeks to understand how localized governance of groundwater in hard rock areas is to be pursued through pricing (water, energy), legal regulation and community institutions. Water supply augmentation and demand management are both to be taken care of, directly through regulation or through indirect instruments such as pricing.

This report published by the Asia Development Bank includes a case study that attempts to understand the potential of watershed development in addressing the issues of poverty alleviation. The important issues in this regard include:

• Assessing the linkages between watershed development and rural livelihoods & poverty,
• Type and nature of benefit flows accruing to various sections of the community
• Challenges in making the watershed programme pro-poor and sustaining it in the long run.

Groundwater depletion has reached such alarming proportions in the semi-arid and arid regions, despite huge investments in watershed development programmes by the state and central governments and the international donor community. One of the stated aims of these programmes is to mitigate drought and ensure water availability throughout the year.

The Andhra Pradesh Farmer Managed Groundwater System (APFAMGS) project is an enabling intervention for managing groundwater depletion through voluntary self regulation. The project has demonstrated its impact in 7 districts of Andhra Pradesh spread over 650 villages, on a significant scale. Read more

This study is a part of water and democracy programme initiated by the Centre for World Solidarity (CWS) as a joint initiative with Church Development Service (EED) in 2007 involving more than 50 partner organisations in South Asia.