Rain Water Management helps improving agriculture livelihood of people and reduced water stress in Keonjhar district of Odisha
Rain Water Management is concept of controlling, conserving and effectively utilising the total precipitation falling in a village / watershed. In case of Odisha, annual rainfall is twice the annual cropping requirements. But still we face drought. Major part of the annual precipitation (79%) falls during the monsoon months (four months). But we also need water for the balance eight months. Earlier there were no proven methods to manage the total precipitation i.e. to store it for future use. Surface reservoirs can store about 10% and natural infiltration about 13% of the total rainfall which is insufficient to support the Khariff crop what to think about Rabi. This method increases the time of concentration from the present thirty minutes to ten hours. It utilises vast stretches of well laid out cultivable land that has been developed by the farmers to conserve moisture and grow crop without any irrigation facility and external help. Underground pore space, whose volume is twice the annual rainfall, is used to store the rain for future use. Water stored inside the ground is efficiently used by crops and plants. The remaining water can be pumped out to support Rabi and summer crops and other human uses.
Looking to the success of rain water management in Asanabani village, this concept has been introduced in 68 villages across keonjhar district with a total outlay of INR 543 lakhs. There are 5360 acres of high lands have been converted to productive land where 5130 families got benefitted. Due to the water availability, local forest have regenerated which provided scope of livelihood to the tribal people with increased quantity of non timber forest produces.
