World Mountain Symposium 2001 Understanding Sustainability through People’s Participation in a Government-led Project

UNDERSTANDING SUSTAINABILITY THROUGH PEOPLE’S

PARTICIPATION IN A GOVERNMENT-LED PROJECT:
EXPERIENCES FROM THE DOON VALLEY INTEGRATED
WATERSHED MANAGEMENT PROJECT, UTTARANCHAL,
INDIA.
BP Pandey,
Jyotsna Sitling

Lessons from the past:

After the devastating floods of August 1978 in North India, the Government of India (GoI) appointed the
Uttar Pradesh state (UP) Forest Department to prepare an integrated watershed management plan, and
its implementation was assisted by the World Bank under the Himalayan Watershed Management
Project (HWMP) with its primary objective of restoring the Himalayan ecosystem.
The Government of UP established the Watershed Management Directorate (WMD) under the Hill
Development Department to manage the World Bank sponsored Himalayan Watershed Project (1984-
85). In 1988 it was re-organised under a unified line of command, whereby staff from different line
agencies was deputed to WMD. This had helped to foster an integrated approach, although it was still
primarily focused on sectors.
Reviewing earlier projects, they were target-driven on techno-economic inputs. Social issues were given
a back seat. Technologies, being externally derived, could not be sustained, and planning being top
down, no stakes could be developed for maintaining the assets on a sustained basis. The Panchayat (local
self-government) with which the project worked failed to enforce common property resource user
obligations.

The Doon Valley Integrated Watershed Management

Project (DVP)
Background:
The Doon Valley occupies 2408 sq. km. The project area is bounded by the lesser Himalaya in the north,
the Shiwalik hills to the south, the Yamuna river on the west and the Ganges on the east. The terrain
mostly includes steep slopes and to a lesser extent gently sloping pediment plains. Prompted by local
concerns over the environmental degradation in the Doon Valley, the European Union (EU) agreed to
finance the Doon Valley Integrated Watershed Management Project (DVP) with the Government of
Uttaranchal state (erstwhile Uttar Pradesh). The project implementation started in June 1993 and
extends to December 2001. The area profile and the project profile of DVP are given in Annexe-1.

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World Mountain Symposium 2001 Understanding Sustainability through People’s Participation in a Government-led Project

Working approach:
Having learnt lessons from the earlier experiences, DVP focussed on a participatory and integrated
approach to watershed management. The primary objective of this project is to arrest, and as far as
possible reverse, the on-going degradation of the Doon Valley ecosystem. The subsidiary objective is to raise
the living standard of the communities through their positive involvement, specially of women, in the project
implementation.
The project envisaged a flexible, integrated and holistic approach. The focus was on “village watersheds”
representing the area of influence of the village. Selection was based on physical conditions, erosion
status and incidence of poverty.

Initial training and orientation:

In 1993, a one-year preparation period was offered for rational planning and for re-orientation training
for staff. A local NGO provided a series of village ecosystem planning courses, training on PRA planning
and institution building. Emphasis was on establishing a meaningful rapport and effective communication
with the communities, specially the womenfolk. The main thrust was to empower people through
sharing of quality information in terms of understanding the essence and approach of the project.

Initial problems encountered at the organisational level:

The ‘top-down’ procedure of the then existing system had to be rationalised in the new approach. Very
few implementers and policy-makers backed this new approach. Communities needed de-conditioning
from past exposure to development methodologies. Congruent social change was time-consuming. The
co-operation from the line agencies was poor (Thapliyal et al., 1999).

Planning phase with a clear purpose:

Before PRA planning, the importance of the natural resource base was objectively explained to the
community through a watershed approach. This led to understanding of the essence of the project by
the villagers to make informed decisions during PRA. Any contribution of the project that met immediate
needs of the villagers was clearly defined and linked to obligation in reciprocity for maintenance,
following conservation practices and a reasonable level of contribution in cash, kind or labour from the
villagers’ side.

Village-level intervention with a finite period:

The project normally worked for four and half years (6 months – micro planning, 3 years –
implementation, 1 year – withdrawal). Altogether 303 villages were taken up in rolling phases. This time-
scale and programmatic sequence of activities for sound process transfer was made clear to the
community from the beginning. This enabled people to develop a timeframe for taking-over
responsibilities. Respective roles evolved very clearly by the end of the project which was formalised in
the Withdrawal Plan of the villages for implementation.

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World Mountain Symposium 2001 Understanding Sustainability through People’s Participation in a Government-led Project

Integration of work and social factor:

The project intervened with seven components in an integrated manner. The components were: 1.
Forestry, 2. Animal Husbandry, 3. Soil Conservation, 4. Agriculture, 5. Horticulture, 6. Minor Irrigation
and 7. Energy Conservation. A more detailed description is given by Datta & Virgo (1998). A single male
staff equipped with core multi-disciplinary technical trainings was deputed to handle the community
during the implementation phase. He was assisted by a female community facilitator and a female
motivator for community mobilisation, specially the womenfolk.
On the technology front, resource conservation and production technologies that gave immediate as
well as long-term benefits to the farmers were given priority. In-situ soil and moisture conservation
technologies were adopted. Technical plans were modified to a reasonable degree to incorporate
grassroots needs. A premium was given to integrating conservation technologies and practices with
socio-cultural values. Inputs in livelihood improvement devices were matched and negotiated with
improvement in the livelihood support base systems. The profile of component expenditures and their
major impacts are given in Annexe-I.

Mainstreaming gender in the project process:

The project addressed the specific problems of women in practical areas for drudgery reduction through
promotion of gender-friendly technologies (crop, fodder, animals, devices, implements) coupled with
awareness and sensitisation of men. This gave them more time, support and confidence to participate in
the social decision-making process of watershed activity through Women Self Help Groups (SHGs).
These were reflected in their involvement in meetings, confidence in decision-making and verbal
expression capability. Special attention was given to education, training , awareness campaign, thrift
saving and loaning. The disadvantaged people were addressed through upgradation of traditional skills
and proactive consideration in non-land based benefits and loans.

Enabling process-orientated policies in village-level organisation:

The project believed that the basis of development and progress lies in initially informal but effective
village institutions. A Gram (Village) Resource Management Association (Garema) was formed in each
revenue village in the course of PRA-based planning exercises. One female and one male member of
each household was represented in the Garema. Generally, Garemas have five to eleven members in the
executive body, including women (33%) and disadvantaged people, with five office-bearers (executives)
appointed by consensus or through election. The Gram Pradhan (Chairperson) of the Panchayat is the
patron of the committee, who would provide the link with the Panchayati Raj Institution (PRI), i.e local
self-government. The state of Uttaranchal has taken steps to mainstream Garemas with PRI.
During the implementation phase, the project helped the Garemas to develop the institutional capacity in
framing their own rules, regulations and procedures to meet their upcoming institutional challenges. This
involved continuous action research on sustainable alternatives and consequently developing guidelines
through supportive trainings and workshops of staff and Garema members, as well as enabling linkage of
Garemas with external institutions. These processes led to the evolution of five policy documents by
1998 on 1. Rules of Garema, 2. Reciprocal Obligation Policy, 3. Management of Revolving Fund, 4.

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World Mountain Symposium 2001 Understanding Sustainability through People’s Participation in a Government-led Project

Strategy for Paraprofessionals and 5. Withdrawal Strategy. These documents have been approved by the
Empowered Committee (a high-level committee of erstwhile UP Government) in 1999.
These documents transpire the spirit of institutional processes which could evolve in the context-specific
socio-political and environmental milieu. They offer a tolerable limit of standardised institutional
measures and guidelines required to spearhead scale-up of a large-scale participatory project.

Enabling reciprocal obligation process for building of ownership:

The reciprocal obligation measures could not be brought into practice until the project was reasonably
accepted by the villagers. Once the project interventions started getting accepted in the villages, the
contributions were progressively scaled-up from 1995 to 1997 by making the community understand the
need to raise a viable fund for self-reliance and sustainability (see Annexe-II for a sample). The whole
exercise was standardised as a Reciprocal Obligation Policy in 1998. The major considerations for
determining the cash contribution from individuals were:

1. Sacrifices made in adopting conservation practices.

2. Economic benefits reaching the stakeholders directly through the items.
3. Pre-exposure to the items and easily disposable nature of items.
4. Items directed towards individual or group of stakeholders.
5. Socio-economic conditions of stakeholders.
6. Remoteness of the area.
Technology value of the items to meet the project’s objectives, e.g bio-gas plants.
The contributions of the farmers in kind practically meant following those conservation practices which
led to education and awareness for long-term environment gains. These were: closing plantation areas
for at least five years, stall feeding of cattle, rational lopping of trees, prevent forest fires, planting the
agriculture bunds with fodder grasses, maintaining the common natural assets and vegetative treatment
of erosion-prone areas through collective ‘Shramdan’ (voluntary labour), etc.
Since the cash equivalent of villagers’ contributions was deposited in their own fund, their participation,
ownership and stake in the creation and management of a revolving fund became very high. The
principle of reciprocal contributions has engendered a sense of local ownership, favoured local
maintenance of the assets and reduced the subsidy dependency syndrome (Virgo & Roe, 2001).

Revolving funds for financial empowerment:

In the early stages of the project, it was envisaged that the funds would be utilised only for the purpose
of maintaining or managing common property resources after the project withdrawal. But subsequent
experience transpired that it would be preferable to start up circulating money within the community for
loaning. The idea was floated amongst the villagers and caught their imagination after initial resistance.
The Garemas have evolved their own institutional procedure to manage their loaning systems (modes of
payment and repayment; rules and regulations regarding selection of candidates; rates of interest and
penalties; etc).
Members have used loans for varied social and economic purposes. The social pressures to repay and
maintain the funds have proved to be stronger than any outside pressure. The revolving fund has

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World Mountain Symposium 2001 Understanding Sustainability through People’s Participation in a Government-led Project

become the focus of group transaction. The group’s ability to maintain records and manage its affairs in
turn increased the members’ confidence and self-reliance. This process gave them greater financial
empowerment. The position of revolving funds is illustrated in Annexe-I.

Developmental initiatives through paraprofessionals:

Bearing in mind the dearth of adequate field staff, the project introduced paraprofessionals to promote
institutional building processes and manage the scale-up programme implementation portfolio. This gave
the staff more time for trainings, monitoring and developing new ideas for systems development. This
also helped to build the technical capacity of the villagers. The project facilitated the service linkage of
paraprofessionals with the communities through the Garema and gradually phased out its own support.
This exercise could be useful in isolated pockets. Outmigration of paraprofessionals remained the major
setback in this exercise.

Federation of Garemas:
The common concern for environmental protection and effective external linkages led the socially
affiliated villages (three or more) to come together to form federations called Corema (Cluster of
Resource Management Associations) in 1999. Coremas have been actively involved in evolving and
sustaining a monitoring and evaluation system and an inter-village auditing system, protection of inter-
village common property resources, resolving conflicts and promoting production-related activities
(Sitling, 2001). Funds for undertaking all these activities have been mobilised from 2% on the principal
and 10% on the interest derived from the revolving fund of the Garema. The supportive role of Coremas
has kept the enthusiasm for the Garema alive even after the withdrawal.

Mainstreaming withdrawal protocol in the project process:

The project enabled the people to develop a timeframe for taking over the responsibility for the
maintenance of resources. At the time of withdrawal, a ten-year ‘Resource Management Plan’ or
'Withdrawal Plan' had thus been prepared by each Garema. This plan outlines the details for upkeep and
management of Common Property Resources (CPR), Community Assets (CA) and Private Assets (PA)
by providing adequate institutional, financial and technical arrangements. The plan shows a high degree
of environmental and social commitment as reflected in their fund utilisation pattern (Annexe-III).
Ingenious checks and balances have been incorporated in this plan to balance the power structure and to
avoid future misuse of funds. The PRIs and District Development Authorities have been sensitised about
this plan. The way communities have involved themselves in the preparation and implementation of
Withdrawal Plans shows their high degree of commitment to sustaining the project process.

Impact on secondary stakeholders:

In the initial years, the government officials tended to be sceptical of the project approach. The lead
agency’s (Indian Ministry of Agriculture) formal watershed management guidelines were somewhat
different from the project methodology. Latterly, the participatory processes evolved by the project
became more widely appreciated by both state and central government. The EU as the funding agency
gave consistent support to the project’s approach and has frequently cited the Doon Valley Project as
one of their most successful projects in India. These changes in attitude could also be because of an

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World Mountain Symposium 2001 Understanding Sustainability through People’s Participation in a Government-led Project

evolving nation-wide paradigm shift in the perception that village-based, participatory watershed projects
represent the most successful approach to watershed management in India (Kerr et al., 2000).

Sustainability and replicability:

As stated at the outset (Virgo & Maleta, 1993), the participatory approach was a new and, at that time,
an untested approach. This concern has been reiterated by Rhoades (1999), warning that proof of long-
term sustainability is needed and that technical issues still remain important.
In a study conducted by a Technical Assistance team (WS Atkins) on the Doon Valley processes,
especially the village-level institution development has shown a high degree of sustainability (Annexe-IV)
with positive indications to continue in the medium term (Virgo & Roe, 2001). Participatory methods
developed by the project have been assimilated into the World Bank aided Forestry and Watershed
Project in the Himalayan region of India. As a large-scale Government project to have internalised the
participatory approach through implementation, it stands a greater chance of replicability in terms of its
process. WMD’s planning, management and monitoring capacities are already being used to identify,
plan, supervise and monitor further integrated participatory watershed and environmental conservation
programmes to be implemented by line agencies and NGOs through government or external funding in
the newly created state of Uttaranchal. This needs enhancing the facilitation role of WMD (Virgo & Roe,
2001).

An optimistic note on change:

Impacts of DVP may be small in terms of geographical area, but the lessons learnt have definitely much
wider implications. These will certainly be trend-setting in changing the way developmental initiatives
will be pursued for future mountain development projects.
Acknowledgement
The Authors wish to thank the European Commission, whose clarity of purpose and support for the
approach enabled the project to work with a clear vision and share the valuable insights in this forum.
Thanks are also due to our many colleagues from the Watershed Management Directorate and the
Technical Assistance team, whose contribution and commitment to this process-oriented approach
made participation of the community a reality in a Government organisation. Most importantly we feel
grateful to the villagers of Doon Valley, whose relentless interest and deep involvement in the project
made possible all these valuable insights.

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World Mountain Symposium 2001 Understanding Sustainability through People’s Participation in a Government-led Project

REFERENCES:
Datta, SK & Virgo, KJ. 1998. Towards Sustainable Watershed Development through People’s Participation.
Mountain Research & Development 18: 213-233.
Sitling, J. 2001. Participatory Eco-restoration: Breaking Ground in Participatory Action Research. In:
Learning to Share 2 (ed. by N Mukharjee & B Jena), pages 25-46. Concept Publishing, New Delhi.
Kerr, J, Pangare, G, Pangare, Vl & Gerorge, PJ. 2000. An Evaluation of Dryland Watershed Development
Project in India. EPTD Discussion Paper 68. International Food Policy Research Institute,
Washington, USA.
Rhoades, RE. 1999 Participatory Watershed Management: Where the Shadow Falls. Sustainable Agriculture
& Rural Livelihoods, Gatekeeper Series SA 81. IIED, London.
Thapliyal, KC, Lepcha, STS & Kumar P. 1999. A New Approach for Government: Doon Valley IWMP. In:
Fertile Ground: Impacts of Participatory Watershed Management (ed. by F Hinchcliffe, J Thompson,
J Pretty, I Gujit, P Shah), pages 157-163. IT Publications, London.
Virgo, KJ & Maleta, BP. 1993. Participative Approaches to Watershed Management. Tropical Agriculture
Association Newsletter, September 1993.
Virgo, KJ & Roe, J. 2001. Why was Doon Valley Project a success? – reflections by the TA Team. National
Workshop on Watershed Strategy for Uttaranchal, Dehradun, India, July 2001.