Livelihood Support from Watershed Development in India: Issues of Equity and Property Rights Regime

Abstract

"It is therefore important to examine the issue of equity in sharing of benefits from watershed projects, focusing on common property land as well as water resources. It is however important to recognised that there is a limit beyond which the inherent inequality in ownership of land, which in turn determines access to ground water, could be overcome even if regulatory mechanisms for benefit sharing are in place. Understanding the limits set up by the existing property rights regimes thus, is an essential pre-condition for understanding the issue of equity and benefit sharing within the context of micro watershed projects.

"Given this backdrop, this paper will examine: (a) role of common lands (including forest) and ground water in determining the benefits from micro watershed projects; (b) distribution of benefits across households within the village community; and (c) policy imperatives for ensuring more equitable distribution of benefits in the light of the examples of good practices. The study will be based mainly on primary data collected form households in 12 micro watersheds (about five) in the western part of Madhya Pradesh-a state having large number of watershed projects implemented in regions with substantially large proportion of forest land.

"The analysis is divided into four sections. The next section discusses the issue of equity in watershed development in the light of interface between private and common property resources in Indian context. Section 3 presents evidence on equity in benefits from various watershed projects in the country. This is followed by discussion on good practices for addressing the issue of equity and livelihood promotion within watershed projects. The last section highlights policy implications."