Effective Management of Water through Strengthened Local Governance in Scheduled Areas of Chhattisgarh

State Level Consultation on 
“Effective Management of Water through Strengthened Local Governance in 
Scheduled Areas of Chhattisgarh” Organised by PRIA on January 9, 2013, at Raipur.

PRIA (Society for Participatory Research in Asia) with support of Arghyam, Bangalore, and in collaboration with SROUT, Korba, is pursuing a year-long Action Research on implementation of the provision of the Panchayat Extension to Scheduled Area (PESA) Act -1996, with focus on water issue. The action research is being carried out in five Panchayats of Korba district.

PRIA organized one day state level consultation on “Effective Management of Water through Strengthened Local Governance in Scheduled Area of Chhattisgarh” at Raipur on January 9, 2013. The key objectives of the consultation was to share the experiences of the action research and explore strategies for effective water management in scheduled areas of Chhattisgarh through strengthened local governance systems; to share the key finding of perception study on provision of PESA act and discuss the issues related the implementation of PESA; and to discuss the strategies to ensure active participation of gram sabha and panchayat in effective management of water resources.

Around 50 participants from 6 districts of Chhattisgarh (Raipur, Bilaspur, Korba, Sarguja, Ambikapur and Rajnandgaon) and from Bangalore and Delhi participated in the State consultation. It included government officials; panchayat elected representatives and gram sabha members from Korba Bilaspur & Sarguja district; civil society organisations and  social activists from  6 districts of Chhattisgarh; as well as media personnel and Arghyam colleagues from Bangalore and PRIA colleagues from Delhi.

Some of the key speakers of the consultation were  Dr. Sushil Trivedi, Ex. State Election Commissioner and formerly secretary of water Resource & Irrigation dept; Mr. B. L. Dhruw, Joint Director of Panchayat Department; Mr. B.D. Vaishanav, Project Director of Water Resource Department; Mr. P.C. Baghel, Joint Director of Agriculture Department; Ms. Sonali Srivastava, Consultant of Arghyam-Bangalore; Mr. Manoj Rai, Director of PRIA; Ms. Namrata Jaitli, Dy. Director of PRIA  and Mahesh Dhandole, State In-charge of PRIA Chhattisgarh.

The Consultation assisted in getting an overview of the Action Research on implementation of PESA in Chhattisgarh, with focus on water issues, with the sharing of experiences from a pilot initiative in 5 panchayats wherein gram sabha members were involved in   participation in water management.

Through engaged deliberations among the participants, the challenges and possibilities of implementation of PESA provisions in Chhattisgarh were explored, which included discussion on government initiatives and practical challenges faced in the field to ensure active participation of panchayats and gram sabha in water management.  The Consultation helped in reemphasizing the role of gram sabha and panchayats in water management in scheduled areas and mobilized a collective demand for implementation of PESA act provisions in Chhattisgarh.