The water budgeting exercise, which is one of the primary components of Community Collaborative Water Management (CCWM), will be carried out as per the ground realities prevailing in the individual villages, or cluster of villages, which comes under the tank/canal system, said S. Sivalingam of Centre of Excellence for Change (CEC), an association of serving and retired engineers.
Water budgeting is an exercise wherein every family as well as the village will have to take into account the total availability of water and then assess the requirements i.e. for various purposes, so as to ascertain whether there was surplus or deficit water. In the event of a deficit, focus will then have to be on finding out sources to meet the deficit.
Speaking on the occasion of the World Water Day, Mr. Sivalingam said water, a natural resource, is fundamental necessity for life, livelihood, food security and sustainable development.
The present scenario in the water resources sector has given rise to several concerns.
The change management in water governance (briefly known as democratisation of water management) has already been spearheaded by the Change Management Group (CMG) in Tamil Nadu, which had subsequently been piloted by the Centre of Excellence for Change (CEC), a forum of voluntary government officials, water managers and social activists.
Institutionalisation and strengthening of community-based water management have been focused right now for which the concept of Model Villages has been introduced in all the river basins of Tamil Nadu.
The concept of model villages with the components of Participatory Irrigation Management (PIM), Village Vision Building, Community Collaborative Water Management (CCWM), Public - Public - Partnership, etc., are few proven strategies that will bring a promising future to the villages.
This will ultimately facilitate overall sustainable development of our nation, especially in water and food sectors.
In the Tamil Nadu Water Resources Department (TNPWD/WRD), most of the engineers have acquired adequate exposure on the change process through the trainings / workshops conducted by various institutes in the past. As a part of our mission, the engineers and members of CEC have decided to celebrate the World Water Day on March 22 in a different way, by engaging themselves with their respective model villages and carrying out convergence activities in coordination with the line departments.
