Ensuring Drinking Water Security – A Case of Dodivada Village, Mehsana

Adivada (IWMP-4) project is located in Bechraji Taluka, Mehsana District of Gujarat state. The nearest town is Bechraji which is about 10 to 15 Km from watershed area which is well connected by pucca road. The project area lies in nearest boundary of Patan district.

Dodivada village of Adivada cluster in which Patel, Thakor, Rabari, Harijan, Darbar and other communities are the primary inhabitants of the watershed village. The livelihood of these people is primarily based on rain fed agriculture, wage labour, animal husbandry. The population of the village is 2111 respectively.

But the major issue in the village was scarcity of water for drinking as well as for life saving irrigation of their valuable crops; especially in the hamlets which are comparatively new settlement which don’t have these established facilities.The village did not had any reliable source for drinking water. There was only one drinking water tank in the village which was in worn-out condition earlier. The height of the tank was short; as a result there was continuous leakage from the tank. As per socially imposed construct the women in the villages had to spend a lot of time to fetch Drinking water for their households. They need to walk down 2km to the next village to fetch water for their drinking purpose. Thus, the availability of perennial drinking water was an acute problem in the Dodivada village. With the inception of the IWMP project, the Dodivada village of Mehsana district was taken under IWMP 4 in Batch-II in year 20010-11 by DWDU-Mehsana.

The project is purely community oriented and local people have a clear say in their resource management, utilization and its conservation. The project is planned, managed, executed and operated through community based institution (Village Watershed Committee).

Community and Participation: As a part of the participative planning process the drinking water availability was identified as the major problem in the village. The solution for the same came across as an outcome of PRA Exercise conducted by the Watershed Development Team during the preliminary phase of project planning. The Watershed Development Committees, PIA and Gramsabha decided to repair the existing drinking water tank to have permanent solution of this problem. The WDT finalized the activity under Entry Point Activity and works were started after approval of Gram Sabha constructed and completed within months at a cost of Rs. 2.84 Lakhs.

The Way Ahead... As an impact of this intervention currently this drinking water tank is the main drinking water source available within the village providing drinking water to the 500 village households round the year.

• Technical Detail: 5.50 Mt. Height Dia. Mt.: 5.80 
• Storage Capacity: 1, 35,000 Lit. 
• Cost of Construction: 2.84 Rs. In Lakhs.

This activity undertaken under EPA helped successfully to gain trust of the villagers for operationalizing IWMP further in the village.