DEVELOPMENT PROJECTS

Community Ground Water Irrigation Sector Project (CGISP)

Rationale of the Project

Majority of the cultivable land in Nepal is un-irrigated. The surface irrigation is even more costly. Without irrigation the agricultural production could not be exploited to its full potential. Therefore ths project helped to bring an improvement in the lives of small farmers through the installation of shallow tube wells in the proposed VDCs.

General Objective

To increase production and productivity of crops for food security.

Specific Objectives

• To mobilise small farmers (less than 1.5 Bigha of land) of the community .
  
• To improve the economic status of the poor farmers by installing STWs .
  
• Capacity building of the water users groups (WUGs) to sustain irrigation projects
  
• To train community on loan availability and repayment.
  

Results

CGISP has been successful in organizing the interested and needy people into water users’ groups which facilitates them to get involved in community ground water irrigation programme through group meeting and coordination among local political parties, social organizations, VDCs, CBOs and NGOs. Until January 2007, altogether 1678 (cumulative) water user groups has been formed which has been approved by the GFO.

Altogether 1201 STWs has been installed in the community so far, which has the capacity to irrigate 2845.5 hectares of land.

The WUGs members are being benefited in terms of gaining skills and knowledge about farming, operation and maintenance of the tube-wells through exposure visits and other forms of education. In addition, increased levels of irrigation, timely cultivation, and institutional credit facilities have helped in the production of fresh vegetables crops. It has contributed in raising the income of people. The farmers who have installed the STWs are now cultivating main season and early season rice, wheat, whereas it was not possible before to cultivate the crops without irrigation. The farmers are being benefited from the off-season and seasonal vegetables, especially in the winter season. They are also increasing the production and improving their livelihood by selling the surplus vegetables in the local Haat Bazar.

Since this project’s PFI, Grameen Bikash Bank, works only with women only women were included in the WUG of this project. Therefore, we did not take specific activities to include the women and men in this particular project. However, activities undertaken by the project like groups work, training/visit, meetings, etc. supported women for their empowerment.

88.4 km. of rural road (grameen sadak) has also been constructed in Morang, Sunsari, Siraha and Saptari districts during the project period.