Anantapur district of Andhra Pradesh in South India comes under a massive rain shadow. It is supposed to receive an average of 500 millimetres of rain annually. In the past five years, rainfall has dipped to 180 mm in the mandals that the Collective works in.

In such a situation, it is critically important to harvest every drop of rainfall that is received. Rainwater harvesting not only ensures that the rainfall is available for use at a later time, but also has other benefits such as the arresting of soil loss, improvement in the water table and the increase in plant life due to increased moisture availability in the soil. When rainwater harvesting work is carried out over a widespread geographic area, the land needs to be surveyed for topological conditions that will affect the flow of water and appropriate structures created in appropriate locations such that the whole area is benefited. Such a geographical spread is known as a watershed.

The Collective's work in water conservation consists of the following components :

Since the protection and ecological restoration of the hills or the catchment area of these tanks does not immediately yield immediate economic advantages to the villagers it is often difficult to convince them of the necessity of such work, especially because they have been cut off from the resources of this land.

The Collective therefore decided to simultaneously initiate work that gave immediate results and improved the situation of the farmers and thereby motivating them for the "long-term" investment of ecorestoration. One such work was tank desiltation and silt application to dry lands in the catchment area from where the silt came in the first place.

Tank desiltation is one of the major components implemented by the CBOs in the project area. Over the years hundreds of acres have been applied with this silt. All the villages have benefited tremendously because of the tank desiltation programme. People's contribution to this programme has been to the tune of 35 to 40 %.

The effect of tanks desiltation is predominant in Mushtikovela, Kogira and Kambaalapalli villages. An average yield increase of 5 to 10 bags per acres has been recorded.

The increased storage in tanks has recharged 10 wells in Kogira and over 20 wells in Mushtikovela. Apart from recharging, presently the tanks are the main source of drinking water for animals during summer. As a secondary benefit, the water availability during summer has benefited many who have taken up brick making under the "Chief Ministers of Youth Development Programme".

A 100 meters bund of an old Kunta (small rainwater harvesting structure) was reconstructed near Mushtikovela. This bund was built, many years ago, across the Brahmdevani vanka, one of the four major feeder channels to Mushtikovela tank to form a small Kunta.

The strengthening of the Kunta bund has increased the percolation - increasing water in the open wells down stream. This bund was designed and built by the members of the VSC. Every family from the village participated by contributing a certain amount as labour or by contributing bullock carts or stones.

Over the years financial support for this programme has been received from OXFAM - UK, CEBEMO, BILANCE, CORDAID - Netherlands, MISERIOR - Germany through IGSSS - New Delhi.

In recognition of the Collective's capabilities in the sphere of eco restoration and community mobilisation, during 2001-2002, the district administration invited the Collective to become a Project Implementation Agency (PIA) and take up 14 watersheds spread over 14 villages and 3 mandals. The idea is to help the villagers to develop and manage their watersheds. Each of these watersheds has a geographical spread of over 500 hectares each. The primary focus has been revitalising small water bodies and towards the promotion of horticultural activities.

Initially, a primary survey was conducted. After this, Gram sabhas were held, to help plan the programme in an inclusive and open manner. In February and March 2002, PRAs were conducted to identify existing water bodies such as tanks, springs, water holes and checkdams.

A few plans were also made for constructing new water bodies. While making the social and resource maps during the PRAs, it was found that each watershed village had as many as 10 to 30 water bodies that needed renovation. Simultaneously, user groups were formed in every watershed village to take the responsibility of implementing the programme.

Totally 264 water bodies were initiated. 36 have been completed and 50% work has been completed in another 228 water bodies through 210 user groups. Awareness building on the importance and future maintenance of these water bodies has been an ongoing effort. Wage rates were discussed and payments were made during the user group meetings.

In the context of heavy investments for ground nut and untimely and meager rains dry land horticulture is a better alternative. Under the watershed programme 173 farmers initiated horticulture in 458 acres. 28,721 pits were dug for this purpose.

Financial support for this work is being received from DFID - UK through the APRLP - Goverment of Andhra Pradesh

The years since 2001 have seen unprecedented drought in the region, and almost 60% groundnut crop failure. This has resulted in large scale migration for employment.

To counter this, the Andhra Pradesh government initiated a "Food for Work" programme to generate employment in the villages. The then district Collector invited VANA (a network of NGOs, of which the Collective is a member) to take up some works.

The Collective as part of VANA implemented the FFW programme in Chennekothapalli, Ramagiri, and Roddam mandals between October 2001 and September 2002. 47 works were taken up in 23 villages. 4,059 quintals of rice was expended costing Rs. 22,93,335. Some high lights of this work are:

• 24,161 work days generated.
• 37,728 water harvesting trenches;
• 13,440 pits for planting trees;
• Land development work in 136 acres;
• Renovation of 7 water bodies;
• Land leveling, trenching etc. for tamarind orchard;
• Link Roads and New roads.

Water harvesting trenches were dug in the revenue wastelands belonging to Kogira, Kambalapalli and Shyapuram villages of Roddam Mandal and Mushtikovela, Subbarayunipalli and Guvvalagovindampalli villages of Chennakothapalli mandal. This was taken up in the Kalpavalli area. The water harvesting trenches help reducing soil and water runoff. They also collect small pools of rainwater, which in turn helps growth of vegetation around the trenches.

Trenching done on the boundaries of the tamarind orchards promoted by the thrift groups and VSCs helped controlling grazing. The rain water collected in the trenches also helped faster growth of the tamarind trees that had been planted.

A 10 km. road was laid linking Mustikovela and Shyapuram. This work helped the villages around Mustikovela to become accessible to Roddam, Shyapuram, Kogira, Kambalapalli and nearby villages as the motorable distance got reduced by 40 kms. Different (CBOs) were involved from the planning stage onwards and were involved in continuous monitoring of the programme.