Activities within the grant and impact:
The Trusts have supported TCSRD over a four-year period, beginning 2004, towards salinity mitigation initiatives in six villages of Okhamandal taluka, piloting area specific interventions to tackle the problems related to addressing drinking water security.

During this period, TCSRD constructed roof rainwater harvesting systems (RRWHS) for 538 households, piloted land reclamation activities across 66 hectares through adoption of specific soil treatment activities, and constructed five water-harvesting and recharge structures to enhance the ground water recharge and reduce the impact of salinity ingress. It also piloted horticulture-based activities, and promoted drip irrigation for agriculture in three hectares.

Specific assessment data clearly showed a positive impact of land treatment activities with an average income increase of Rs8,000 to Rs10,000 per year, with 40 per cent to 50 per cent increase in the production of groundnut and jowar crops from the treated agricultural holdings.

Similar interventions for enhancing ground water recharge resulted in enhancing the well-water yields, and the availability of water for critical support irrigation. This resulted not only in saving crops, but also in enhancing the groundnut production by almost 50 per cent.

Construction of household level roof rainwater harvesting and storage systems also secured drinking water requirements of households for over six to seven months of the year. This resulted in savings of over Rs4,000, an amount that would otherwise have been spent procuring water from tanker-based water suppliers. More importantly, the construction of RRWHS within the homes of the beneficiaries resulted in timesaving of between 2-4 hours daily.

Phase 2 of the project focuses on scaling up of the interventions carried out in the six Phase I villages, and subsequently covering 20 salinity affected villages of Okhamandal taluka. The objectives of the project are mainly:

	Enhancing economic returns for farmers from agriculture, through diversification to alternative crop practices, thereby increasing agricultural productivity whilst reducing input costs
	Enhancing people’s knowledge and attitude towards improved water management strategies, and creating mass awareness about the use of water saving technologies
	Constructing water-harvesting structures to reduce salinity ingress
	Enhancing drinking water security in all the project villages
	Establishing and strengthening appropriate village level Community Based Organisations (CBO) to effectively manage the resources and promote marketing of agricultural produce

Key activities revolve around:

	Construction, as well as enhancement of the capacities of water-harvesting structures
	Promotion of efficient irrigation techniques — drip and sprinklers — for judicious use of the water stored in the impounding structures
	Promoting improved agriculture practices through crop diversification, land reclamation, improving the cropping pattern, waste land development, vegetable cultivation through polyhouses, and horticulture promotion
	Promotion of alternate non-farm livelihood opportunities such as aquaculture
	Enhancing market linkages through installation of processing units

This would lead to:

	Reclamation at least 300 acres of salinity affected land
	Establishment of improved cropping practices with at least 60 farmers – three in each village, which will be nodal demonstration plots for further scaling up
	Scaling up of improved water management and agricultural practices in at least 1,000 acres through direct engagements with over 300 farmers
	Providing assured irrigation across at least 1,000 acres, spanning two agriculture seasons annually, while harvesting almost 50-60 million cubic feet (MCFT) of rainfall runoff water.

Initial assessment estimates indicate an annual increase of at least Rs30,000 to Rs40,000 per family, in terms of assured first crop (groundnut and cotton), provision of emergency irrigation during Rabi crop (wheat), and cultivation of vegetables on a smaller scale during the summer season. Drinking water security would be further assured to over 200 households through the construction of decentralised drinking water storage systems.