Things are different in Kolsimri, a tiny village of about 100 families residing about 60 kms from State Capital, Ranchi this summer. Farmers of this village in Kuru block of lohardaga had to move to the cities in search of livelihood due to scanty means of irrigation with rise in temperatures every year. This year though, most of them can be seen tending to their fields.
Despite being situated merely a kilometre from convergence of two rivers — Nandini and Koel — farmers from Kolsimri and nearby villages of Umri and Sinjo found it difficult to water their crops as the Koel used to dry up completely. But things changed once Vikas Bharti came to the scene with their idea of erecting bora bandhs (sack dams) in an organised manner.
“More than half of the villagers from Kolsimri used to migrate to cities every year to find jobs as agriculture used to suffer in absence of adequate irrigation facilities. But this year, less than one-fourth of villagers migrated with enough water available due to bora bandh. This will get better in due course of time,” said Jaibir Oraon, a farmer from Kolsimri
Conducted across the plateau State, the Bora Bandh initiative is meant to check the flow of rivers through villages using check dams fashioned out of sand-filled plastic sacks to collect sufficient water for irrigation and animal husbandry. Although this was being done previously too in a scattered manner, Vikas Bharti gets the credit for giving the practice an organised form augmenting its catchment areas and effectiveness.
The check dam in Kolsimri has been constructed at the meeting point of Nandini and Koel, using more than 2,000 sacks and a week’s worth in time, diverting water from the former into the latter. This has not only rejuvenated the Koel in a stretch of 3 km, that to opposite its actual direction of flow. Two more check dams along the river adds to the overall benefit.
“Important thing is that people of the village came together to construct the bora bandh. The sense of ownership is lacking in a government project, but working together with members of one’s own society holds that feeling. Also, considering how only agriculture can stop migration, we will train more people to make them proficient in the occupation,” stated Vikas Bharti Secretary Ashok Bhagat.
“We used to construct check dams with mud for collecting water from Nandini but they neither held the water for long, nor covered the desired area. With the bora bandh now, farmlands even away from the banks of Koel can be irrigated with little effort,” Jaibir said.
The three check dams are expected to benefit 500 to 600 hundred farmers in six villages in two blocks, namely Kolsimri, Umri, Sinjo and Bardih in Kuru block and Nagra and Nadinagra in lohardaga block. More than 500 acres of farmland can be properly irrigated now with the water collected in the bora bandh.
“Wheat, green vegetables, sugarcane are the crops commonly cultivated in the village during summers. Before the bora bandh, each farmer of the area had wheat yield of five to twelve quintals, but we expect that to increase now to nine to seventeen quintals,” assessed Dashrath Pahan, one of the farmers of Kolsimri who laboured to make the bora bandh in the village.
Next, villagers are looking forward to a high capacity transformer to power the machinery for channelling water from the check dams to their fields two to three kilometres away.
“Each of us contributed Rs 1,500 and had a 100 kV transformer installed in the village but it was not able to bear the load put on it. If a high capacity transformer is installed, we will be able to put the check dam to optimum use,” said Dashrath.