Stakeholders Workshop, Gurgaon

DATE: 22.6.2012

VENUE: RAMADA, BMK, GURGAON

The second stakeholders’ workshop in Gurgaon under the IDRC Supported project ‘Water security in periurban South Asia: adapting to climate change and urbanization’ was organised on the 24^th of June, 2012 at the Ramada, BMK, Gurgaon. Dr. Vishal Narain began by highlighting the agenda of the meeting which was mainly to:

-         Assess how far the PHED had come in terms of performing the tasks agreed to at the last meeting to improve the water access of communities in the villages of Sultanpur and Jhanjhrola Kheda

-         Identify any other areas  that needed face to face dialogue between the water users and the PHED (Public Health Engineering Department)

-         Identify the further course of action during the last year of the project to improve water security in these two villages

-         Identify ways of continuing this process of dialogue between the PHED and the water users beyond the project period 

 Dr. Vishal Narain then highlighted some of the work that had been taken up by the PHED and the progress made since the last meeting as also some of the issues that had been raised by the PHED in relation to local water management practices.

The PHED made a few suggestions and urged the villagers to try and pursue those at their level. These included -

• ·         Informing the PHED about the illegal connections in the village, so that FIR could  be lodged against those who pursued such practises.
• ·         Forming a Water Committee to monitor the work and maintenance of the system

Some more suggestions that came from the PHED included compulsory registration of personal tubewells with the Central Groundwater Board;  otherwise they would be seized very soon by the authorities. On enquiring about the tank set up by the PHED in Sultanpur on a portion of a private land, the PHED officials informed that it could not be shifted from the current location, but the owner could be compensated. Also regarding the alternate day availability of water for some of the households in the Sultanpur village, the PHED mentioned that as per their records, they were supplying 70 litres per day per person, but due to illegal connections, most of the water was being taken away by other households leaving some without any water.

The meeting concluded with some concerns that were raised by women panch members from Sultanpur, who felt that water quality testing was very important. Apart from this, there was a need to provide an alternative source of fresh water especially considering the poor families who did not have any means of filtration. Also a pipe connection for households across the railway line was of urgent need.

Summary and Conclusions

This meeting saw a lot of change in the attitude of both the villagers as well as the PHED. Since the purpose of the meeting was to foster dialogue between the water users and providers, and to find ways to jointly improve or solve the problems, both sides conducted themselves very well. As against the usual blame game and anarchy characterising the relationship between the water users and providers, this had taken the form of a disciplined, structured and focused interaction to chalk out a future course of action.

Second Stakeholders’ meeting in Gurgaon – Participation of women representatives from the intervention villages

Recently, on 22^nd June, Gurgaon team organized the second stakeholders’ meeting. The meeting was attended by 8 members from Sultanpur village, including two women representatives, and 4 members from Jhanjhrola Khera. PHED was represented by 1 Sub-divisional Engineer (SDE), 2 Junior Engineers and 2 staff from admin. One of the highlights of the meeting was participation by women representatives from villages. In order to mobilise women representatives from Jhanjhrola Khera and Sultanpur, team members from Gurgaon visited both the villages. In Sultanpur, team members could interact with couple of women Panchs from the village. They were told about the rationale behind organizing the stakeholders’ meeting. They agreed to come to the meeting and also assured that another woman Panch would also come on the day of the meeting. The team members then moved to Jhanjhrola Khera in order to interact with women representatives from the village. In Jhanjhrola Khera, team members spoke to couple of women Panchs and were ensure their participation on the day of the workshop. There were indications that another woman Panch from Jhanjhrola Khera would also come.

On the day of the workshop, a vehicle had been arranged to get women from the village and then drop them back after the meeting. Surprisingly, none of the women Panchs from Jhanjhrola Khera agreed to come for the meeting. One of them said that she had to go to a doctor, whereas the other one simply did not want to travel such a long distance and come to Gurgaon! Eventually, on the day of the meeting, two women Panchs from Sultanpur village came for the meeting. One of the women, amongst the two, belonged to a low caste, but she was able to put forward her points during the meeting. She raised the issue that in Sultanpur village, there was no water connections or pipes beyond the railway line, which was making it difficult for women in this section of village to access water. By the end of the meeting, PHED officials had agreed to survey this particular area and if satisfied with the water quality would arrange for setting a tubewell. The team considers this as an achievement, as women representatives generally do not have any say, even during Panchayat meetings, when they are represented by their male counterparts. However, during the second stakeholders’ meeting they were provided a platform to voice their opinion and by the end of the meeting, the team felt that they could actively do so. 

Stakeholders Meetings and Awareness Programmes in Peri-Urban Hyderabad

The Hyderabad team of the Peri-urban Project organised a week-long series of stakeholders meetings, interactions, and awareness programmes across the field villages. Apart from the village locals - various other stakeholders like the sarpanch, director of water users association, water plant owners, farmers, representations from watershed committee, gated-community, self-help groups, village secretary, ward members, and activists were part of the meetings conducted in Aliabad, Ravirala, and Mallampet villages near Hyderabad. The prime objective of the meeting was to share findings from the scoping study to the community and hear their opinions regarding it. It also provided a good platform to understand perspectives and receive suggestions by varied stakeholders regarding possible interventions that could be undertaken in the village. Discussions on local capacity-building were understood and avenues for collaborating with relevant organizations explored. 

Through these discussions, the villagers shared many issues and problems, especially related to the quality and availability of their water sources. Groundwater in few of the villages is unfit – not just for drinking, but also for agriculture purposes as it is highly polluted. Water channels that help in filling up of the nearby lake are encroached upon leading to the surface water bodies almost never filling up. Since water canals to the village bring water to the fields only when the lakes are full, the village cannot even rely on surface water for its agricultural needs. This is threatening the livelihoods of farmers to a large extent, who are usually forced to sell their lands to private developers which is far more profitable as these peri-urban areas are very sought after for real estate development. Apart from this, effluents from industries contribute to a lot of surface and ground water pollution. Rampant sand mining is also taking place in two villages which has affected the sub-surface water flow which is one of the reasons why the lakes are shrinking. Other problems emerge due to improper water management, lack of any village level functional committee looking at the problems, and ensuing local political dynamics and vested interests by the powerful. 

However, the underlying point in every meeting was the fact that the villagers were very open to support and cooperate with the project team and ensure some concrete actions are taken to improve their present situation. Based on these discussions and suggestions, the team has charted out its future plan of action and interventions for each village so that there are some significant ways that the issues at the ground level are addressed.

The week concluded with awareness programmes that were organised in each of the villages in the form of street plays. Highlighting issues of urbanisation, water security, pollution, and implications due to the changing climate, the cultural group creatively explained these issues to large audiences in each village.

Local Stakeholders Meeting - Nepal

A Local Stakeholders Meeting was organized at Lubhu VDC office on 23-02-2011 (Falgun 11, 2067), Wednesday. The programme started formally at nearly the pre-scheduled time in the morning at 8:00 am with the participation of 14 local key functionaries involving participants representing local NGOs, local intellectuals, water users association, social workers and women groups. It started with a succinct introduction about the project, its objectives and outcomes of the scoping phase by the research coordinator Mr. Rajesh Sada and a brief introduction from each of the participants.

He formally requested the research team leader Prof. Ashutosh Shukla to throw light on the details of the research project, who further clarified on the genesis of the research, the objectives, partner institutes and funding organization including research methodology. Committing on towards achieving targeted goals, he also proposed constituting an instrumental participatory committee involving local stakeholders and the nec research team which will be responsible for the dissemination of the information and findings of the research at the local level and as well as perform the role of local advisory committee.

In second session, the floor was opened to the participants for sharing their views on water security in the area, expectations from the project and suggestions for the smooth operation of the project. This brought forward the transforming situations of the VDC and its impact on water resources including the initiations made from the local level and the obstacles perceived for the water management in the VDC.

Realizing the water crisis scenario in the VDC, an action research as the one undergoing has been a need for this VDC and the participants have enthusiastically committed a constant support for the smooth operation of the research. However, the major local concern has been on the research not to be limited merely on a study and producing a report but also on the certainty of the implementation part for sustainable water management in the VDC. The major expectations of the participants noted from this meeting are listed below:

Ø  Initiative for control of water source pollution,

Ø  Identification and management of alternative water sources,

Ø  Study on the impact of existing pit latrine on surface as well as groundwater quality,

Ø  Study on the possibility of rainwater harvesting and artificial recharge,

Ø  Identification of the feasible water supply schemes and programme based tentative cost estimation for possible proposal submission from VDC level,

Ø  Report submission for archive maintenance at VDC,

Ø  Assistance and support in Filtration Tank and Reservoir Installation,

Ø  Formal signature in Letter of Intent among Local Stakeholders Committee and nec.

 The discussions during the meeting session led to an agreement of constructing of mutually responsible and committed committee during the meeting, scheduled on 28 Feb. 2011 at 7: 30 am and proceed forward. 

On the process of organizing stakeholders meeting at the selected research sites, a local stakeholders meeting was also held at Matatirtha VDC on 25^th February, 2011. The design of this meeting was similar to the meeting at Lubhu VDC.

The meeting was held in the hall of the Matatirtha VDC office in the participation of 19 participants representing youth clubs, Aama samuha (mother groups), women groups, social workers, VDC officials and key functionaries working for water management within VDC. Despite a pre-notice circulated by the VDC office, the participation was quite limited in terms of intellectual participation. However the major plus point of the meeting was a representation from female groups brought forward an existing situation of water management within VDC at the household levels and also the representation from different wards and the views put forward revealed the existing competition and poor inter ward coordination  in water management.

Followed by the information dissemination on the research project and the bases for selecting Matatirtha VDC as site by the research coordinator Mr. Rajesh Sada and the team leader Prof. Ashutosh Shukla, the local representatives from varied sectors committed their help and support in the coming days.

The ex-chair person, Mr. Dharma Raj K. showed his short presence and shared his expectation regarding technical help from Nepal Engineering College in extending road network within VDC and a study on feasibility of proposed Integrated Water Supply Scheme. The interest of different communities within VDC has been quite diverse causing complication in identifying a more general action point in the VDC. In the meantime, Prof Shukla highlighted on the intervening points to be conducted in the VDC will be focused on the  quantification of the surface and ground water availability, including analysis of the water quality and committed the possible technical help to the VDC from nec family. He also informed about the ongoing research activities on collecting the thirty year long meteorological data from various meteorological stations within Kathmandu valley and analyzing the climatic data to study the congruency between locally perceived climate change/ variability and the scientific database.

The VDC secretary, Mr. Lomas Acharya suggested nominating a focal research person to co-ordinate research at the local level and networking between the research team and the local community. Unlike Lubhu, participants mentioned that it is not worthy to constitute a committee as one will not attend the meeting if there is the presence of another with different conflicting views. Due to this conflicting views of different people on politics, economics or water market in the VDC, its great challenge for the research team to conduct participatory research method. This meeting however provided a glimpse of unannounced active political interest among the people therefore alerting research team about the possible hurdles during research phase will be requiring some innovative efforts in networking and bringing different classes the concerned mass into same arena.

Authors: Rajesh Sada, Anushiya Shrestha