Tank Rehabilitation

The water resources development activities are mostly carried out by the Tank Rehabilitation Team. This encompasses social mobilisation works, the rehabilitation of minor irrigation tanks, village ponds, and engineering support towards designing checkdams, minor dams, artificial recharge structures, etc.

User-based Watershed Development

In Tamil Nadu, by August 2000, Harvest had completed the rehabilitation work of 16 minor irrigation tanks and 12 village ponds under Namakku Naame Thittam and Employment Assurance Schemes sponsored by the Directorate of Rural Development Agency, Villupuram. 16 Water Users Associations have been organized and the creation of the first federation of Associations in the region is on the anvil.

These works took place as part of the Kaluvelly project, which long-term vision consists in the establishement of a user-based watershed management model: the Kaluvelly Watershed Development Agency.

Tank Rehabilitation Project-Pondicherry

The social workers of Harvest are also working for the Tank Rehabilitation Project-Pondicherry, Government of Pondicherry, under funding from the European Union.

Harvest was entrusted in the pilot phase of the TRPP with the Community Organisation in two minor irrigation tanks: awareness creation, creation and organisation of tank associations ensuring participation of people in the entire process of rehabilitation of tanks, data collection and the preparation of reports on community organisation work.

The successful experience during this pilot phase has led the TRPP to entrust Harvest with 7 more villages for 2000-2001.

Artificial Groundwater Recharge, Central Ground Water Board

The C.G.W.B. has approved a joint project in the Vanur watershed (Auroville bioregion), with the participation of the Agriculture Engineering Department – Villupuram.

The project will recharge the second aquifer under the Auroville Plateau and protect the pumping stations of Tindivanam (a city of 70,000 inhabitants, 30 km from Auroville), which is threatened by seawater intrusion. Different techniques like injection wells, tank rehabilitations, field bunding and percolation ponds will be utilized.

Watershed management, Mahindra & Mahindra – M.R.V. Project

Expertise and proposals have been provided to the Mahindra & Mahindra’s River Valley project located near the Ovala Village in Thane District of Maharashtra, towards a sound watershed and rain-harvesting development.

Capacity building and social development, Dorabji Tata Trust Project

The Dorabji Tata Trust has donated in 1999 two Tata Hitachi excavators (LC200, tracked) to Auroville Water Service, worth Rs.76,00,000/-. They are used in the activities of the Tank Rehabilitation Team and outside. The income they generate supports Harvest in the fields of environmental protection, sustainable socio-economic development and water resources management. Thanks to this in-house income generation possibility, Harvest was able to launch or sustain -among others- environmental education, aquaculture and ecological farming programs.