Guest Speaker : Nafisaben
Barot from Utthan, Gujarat
contents
about Nafisaben Barot
Education BSC (Nutrition - M.S.University Baroda)
Experience
- Instrumental in building grass-root development teams
and supporting strong community efforts (especially of women's movements),
- to challenge the money lending systems run by exploitative money
lenders
- to create self reliant -decentralised water harvesting systems to
end the ongoing water crisis in Guajrat
- towards equality, peace and secularism.
- towards changing the present water policies which keeps the people
of the state thirsty.
- Associated with the following organizations -
- One of the founders and executive trustee of Utthan -
- One of the founder members of Mahiti - a grass root level organisation
lead by the woman leader from the exploited community
- One of the founders and executive secretary (Hon.)of 'Pravah' - a state
level network on the issue of drinking water basically for supporting
communities movements in self reliant water system and influencing the
appropriate policy changes
- One of the core members of Working Group on Women's Issues- Gujarat
- a state level network initiated during the Beijing processes, to
strengthen women's movements in Gujarat.
- Has been on various State and central Govt.'s committees mainly
related to ' Water' and women's Issues.
- Has been associated with various global and regional networks
- Involved in imparting gender sensitive training on issues of
environment, self help groups and micro credits, community organising and
team building, lobbying and advocacy etc.
- Involved in theatre for more than 25yrs. Instrumental in
creating some of the audio-visual material in Utthan , e.g. various
video documentaries, skits, picture stories, plays etc. by providing
conceptual and other relevant inputs.
about Utthan
Utthan (meaning progress in Gujarati), is an NGO Nafisaben Barot
along with four other women founded in 1981 to work in coastal Bhal region
of Gujarat, India. It works in resource-poor rural areas and seeks to ensure that
natural resources are used in a sustainable manner that improves the
socio-political situation of rural residents, particularly the most
exploited.
Utthan's work has included the installation of lined ponds for water
storage, building recharge wells, and working on rainwater harvesting
as a sustainable method for rainwater cultivation. The rural residents
assist in building the wells and ponds and village committees
ultimately decide what course of action should be taken.
Utthan encourages community participation, especially by women. Their
ultimate goal is to develop self-reliant local groups that can solve
development issues on their own.
agenda for the talk
The talk will describe from perspective of women's movements, combating
drought in the drought prone regions of Gujarat.
minutes
Ms. Nafisaben Barot of Uthaan shared some of her experiences
in working on water issues in Kutch and Saurashtra. She emphasised how she
derived strength by learning from people about these issues. In 1979-80,
while helping with the Block Development plan for Dhanduka, she realised
that the people's perspective was much richer and more detailed than the
government's plan. When a people's plan came up, it was opposed by the
govt. on the grounds that illiterate people do not know anything about
these matters.
It was in response to this attitude that Uthaan was formed to initiate
sustainable development. Uthaan did not go to rural areas with projects in
mind based on preconceived urban notions of what the problems were.
The idea was more to learn from the community as to what the problem
is. This led to the formation of Mahithi -- a team of local
people with a local leadership. It's leader at present happens to be a
dalit woman. It is now a separate organisation which operates in three
districts, one tribal and two coastal.
After this short introduction, the video We can solve it was
screened. This showed how water scarcity was not a new problem in
Gujarat and what kind of community measures could be taken to
ameliorate the problem. The
govt. solution of pipelines is inefficent, in fact, counterproductive,
compared to methods of rain water trapping in large plastic lined
community tanks.
A number of slides were shown. they touched upon various aspects of
community rain water harvesting as well as traditional methods of
rain water capture.
Among the highlights were:
- The village of Unjha in North Gujarat which suffers from excess
fluoride in the water since it comes from depths as much as 1000ft.
Fluorosis is an ireversible process causing
early aging and death. The community got together to get fresh rain water
in a well that had been traditionally used for this purpose but had fallen
into disuse after borewells were sunk. The well has been cleaned up and
covered and the water is pumped to a central tank where people come
and collect the drinking water. This minimises waste.
- A pond in Kutch which is a marvel of engineering design. It has several
compartments. The excess water in one compartment overflows into the
next. the first is used for drinking, the next for washing and bathing and
the last for cattle.
- Roof water rain collection is also an old tradition which is very
common, whereby the water is drained into underground tanks that each
house is built with. these tanks are easily made from mud and the water
remains clean and fresh due to
- Darkness which prevents algae formation
- Aeration
- Limestone ball soaked in the tank.
Laboratory tests reveal that water can stay fresh in these tanks for
as long as three years.
To summarise, the local decentralised alternatives are more viable because
of people's involvement and not because of technology. In fact the Govt.'s
centralised pipeline approach has not worked because:
- The main source is ground water which is being rapidly depleted (the
water table often falls at the rate of 3metres a year) and there is no
method of recharging these resources.
- Industries and cash crops take away an unduly large share of the water
without paying commensurate tarrifs.
- There has been a lot of corruption and the people who have the power
decide what kind of system to go for on the basis of what will benefit them
most.
question & answers
Q What are the alternative strategies and techniques? Are
they documented? How is the water recharged in the tanks with plastic
layers at the bottom?
A The strategies depend on the region and are also culture dependent. for
instance, tribals avoid using water which is not free flowing, used as they
are to streams and rivers. So tanks with static water is not a solution in
their areas. About the recharging of water in tanks, it usually in areas
where the ground water is so saline (3 times more than sea water)
that it cannot be recharged.
Q What can AID do?
A My aim is to create awareness among the NRI's about alternative
solutions to the water shortage problem of gujarat. So that they don't
see the Narmada dam as the only cure. Also the people who who
contribute money to the Gujarat govt. can pressurise and knowledgeably
direct where their money goes into.
Q Are you using your resources for your projects or Govt. resources.
A The idea is to use our small resources as a means to energise a popular
movement which will create pressure on the govt. which can then better
utilise it's vast resources.
suggestions
There were also two suggestions:
- AID should vigorously support constructive alternatives like Uthaan
(what we are for) at the same time as it gives support to
NBA to show what we are against.
- We adopt a volunteer organisation in this rainwater harvesting area as
part of the AID-Saathi fellowship.
Minutes recorded by Rajesh Gopakumar
