Suffering droughts and crop failures year after year, farmers from the parched hinterlands of Jharkhand have always tried to find ways to breathe life into their scorched farmlands. Seeing how several scattered attempts to solve the problem failed to deliver, cultivators are now looking up to ‘Bora Bandh’ to act as a solution to their woes.
Marking the beginning of the initiative, Vikas Bharti Secretary Padma Shri Ashok Bhagat distributed plastic sacks among farmers from all over the State in Gumla on Monday. Farmers from Pandaria village in Sisai block of Gumla built the first ‘Bora Bandh’ under the project. Vikas Bharti has plans to continue the construction of ‘bora bandhs’ in the form of a campaign till February 25.
“The initiative ought to be taken up all over Jharkhand for increasing crop cover in the state and promoting water conservation,” stated Bhagat.
‘Bora Bandh’, which translates to sack dams, are check dams formed out of plastic sacks and sand or mud, made across rivers or canals to check their flow. The sacks are filled with sand or mud and then sewn shut. These sacks are then arranged in two lines and the gap in between is filled with more sand. This forms a dam-like structure which effectively checks the flow of water bodies. The water thus gathered can be further used for irrigating crops or cattle rearing.
Although farmers have been making ‘bora bandhs’ on their own all over Jharkhand, the practice was given an institutionalised framework when Vikas Bharti kicked off construction of these sack check dams in 70 villages of Gumla, Ranchi, lohardaga and latehar, with the objective of water conservation and agricultural development at its core.
Ranchi, with 22 villages, has the highest number of villages to be benefitted by the initiative. 20 villages in Gumla, 18 villages in latehar and 10 villages in lohardaga will also be included in the initiative. One ‘bora bandh’ will be constructed across each of the 70 villages taken under the gamut of the project. These check dams will irrigate farmland stretched in 1400 acres.
The technique-oriented method is gaining popularity among farmers and agricultural experts. The National Initiative on Climate Resilient Agriculture (NICRA) programme conducted by Krishi Vigyan Kendra, Gumla has been using ‘bora bandhs’ to lessen the impact of environment change on farming activities.
The first ever ‘bora bandh’ was built in 2010-11 on the Bhasaria river which flows through Gunia village. The area covered by the sack check dam saw a significant growth in crop cover, underlining the efficacy of the concept.