SHILLONG, Dec 30 ? Barring Manipur (38.96 per cent) and Nagaland (30.59 per cent), in all other States of the north-eastern region, the proportion of gross irrigated area as percentage of gross cropped area various from nearly eight per cent to 18 per cent, which is much less than that of the national average. In light of this, the Centre for Science and Environment (CSE), New Delhi, has recently taken initiative to make ?Rainwater harvesting? a popular technology in the region.
The North East, in fact the entire country has a ?millennia tradition? of rainwater harvesting, this was pointed out in papers presented at a recent seminar on ?Changing Agricultural Scenario in North East India organised by the North East India Council for Social Science Research.
Hills constitute about 70 per cent of the total land area in the North East where shifting agriculture, locally called ?jhum? is the chief land use. The Brahmaputra and the Barak valleys in Assam are the largest valley lands where settled agriculture is practised. While shifting agriculture in the hills lead to fall in soil fertility and environmental degradation, the traditional agriculture in the plain has ben facing the problem of transformation. The common features among all the States and between shifting and settled agriculture is the low level of use of basic inputs of agriculture, viz, irrigation, fertiliser and agricultural credit compared to the national average.
Irrigation has acquired increasing importance among all the inputs in agriculture, a paper presented at the seminar said, while resenting the fact that the Government has not done anything to solve the problems of irrigation in the North East. Dongs constructed by Bodo tribes in Assam bamboo drip irrigation by tribes in Meghalaya, Zobo in Nagaland and Apatami system in Arunachal Pradesh are some of the instances of traditional water harvesting system in the region since antiquity. They harvest monsoon run-off by capturing water from swollen streams during the rainy season and store the water in various forms of water bodies. Raindrops are also harvested directly from rooftops and stored in tanks built in the courtyards.
However, the traditional systems have deteriorated because of the weakening of traditional arrangements for managing these facilities. In fact, many of the traditional forms and practices need change in the light of changing demographic, socio-political and economic contexts, experts opined. Participants at the seminar were of the opinion that the Government approach towards the problem has been marked by Engineers-bureaucrats-politicians taking more of the decisions with the affected people having no say.
Community participation in water management and watershed development in the form of small and medium irrigation work has an important part to play in developing irrigation infrastructure. This involves small outlay and can be executed in a comparatively shorter period. The rainy season in the north-eastern region generally commences from March and lasts till the middle of October with rainfall being abundant in many areas.
Rainwater management with a micro watershed through water harvesting or ground water recharge and recycling of water for various uses is the key to success in watershed based water management in the North East, the experts emphasised. There is need for a more holistic perspective for the region and the government should come forward to encourage rainwater harvesting through awareness programmes and investment in research and development programme in this traditional technology in a big way.