The villagers of Chirugora tribal village were keen to do agriculture for their livelihood but it was not possible due to un-irrigated agriculture land. Water from hill top flows without irrigating their land.
The villagers had no support from govt as being a remote village it was destined to lack basic amenities! The villagers used to migrate in large number to earn livelihood. The socio-economic and physical exploitations were at all time high.
With the selection of village under Jharkhand tribal development program by the International Funds for Agriculture Development during 2007, the light of progress and prosperity started dispersing the clouds of poverty hovering over the lives of tribal community since time immemorial.
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The villagers were also imparted capacity building training on agriculture, fishery, lac cultivation, livestock development, cottage industries, mushroom cultivation etc.
A 4000 feet long irrigation canal to make use of water coming from the hill top and check runoff water during the rainy season was constructed. The villagers even cut a 15 feet deep and 100 feet long hard rock in the way of water with chisel and hammer.
Water from the hill is now fed to each and every agriculture land in the village. The village has increased production. The villagers even constructed a reservoir near the origin of hill which helped in ensuring water for agriculture and also initiated fish cultivation and duck keeping as the secondary source of income. The traditional techniques and thoughts have made the people self reliant in agriculture.
It is to be noted that the social organization working among indigenous community in these villages have constructed 126 ponds, 11 life saving irrigation models, 51 irrigation canal, 2 drinking water well and 19 village approach roads. In this way altogether 1,82,000 mandays were created. It was no machine,but man power who did every bit of water conservation and holistic approach to water and land management program in 17 tribal villages under east singhbhum district in Jharkhand state
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By
Vinay Ranjan Saraswati
Email: [email protected]