• Water is paramount for economic development and poverty reduction.
• Unfortunately, the small water bodies (tanks and others) which have been supporting India’s agriculture and domestic requirement of water for many years in India are fast vanishing now.

Small Water Bodies in India

• From 46.30 lakh hectares (lha) in 1960-61, the area irrigated by tanks in India declined to 16.68 lha in 2019-20.
• About one million hectares of irrigation potential was lost due to encroachment and other reasons.
• Share of tank area in India’s net irrigated area (NIA): Declined from 20 percent in 1960-61,  to 2 percent in 2019-20.
• Example: In States like Tamil Nadu, where tank irrigation accounted for one-third of irrigated area in the 1960s and 1970s, the area under tank irrigation declined from 9.36 lha to 3.72 lha during this period.
• Even in years with good rainfall, the area irrigated by tanks has not increased in Tami Nadu.
• The farmers who were completely relying on tank irrigation for the cultivation of crops have left agriculture or kept the land fallow.
• Surface minor irrigation schemes: It has declined from 6,01,000 in 2006-07 to 5,92,000 in 2013-14.

Need for Small Water Bodies (SWBs)

• In the early to mid-2010s, 1.9 billion people, or 27 percent of the global population lived in severely water-scarce areas.
• This number will increase to 2.7- 3.2 billion people by 2050.
• One out of three people will live in a water-stressed area by 2025. (The Water and Related Statistics 2021).
• These suggest that there is an urgent need to augment the water supply wherever possible to avert the looming water crisis.

Benefits of Small Water Bodies (SWBs)

• SWBs provide easy access to water for domestic needs, animal husbandry, drinking water, and agriculture.
• SWBs can be easily managed because of their small size.
• The maintenance cost of this water source is low compared to that of canal irrigation.
• The command area of most SWBs is normally small, irrigating 100-500 acres. This allows the distribution of water effectively, without any conflicts between tail-end and head-reach farmers, which is common in canal command areas.
• SWBs help reduce the poverty of resource-poor small and marginal farmers.
• The increased water storage from SWBs also helps increase groundwater recharge.
• SWBs are located in every village, so women do not have to walk far to fetch water for their drinking needs.

Key issues of Small Water Bodies (SWBs)

• SWBs are now rapidly declining in terms of numbers and area irrigated.
• Reasons are continuous encroachment on catchment areas and flow canals that carry rainwater to tanks, lack of annual maintenance of tanks by allocating adequate funds, etc.
• It has severely impacted SWBs, turning many of them into dumping grounds.
• Civic bodies remained silent when encroachments of water bodies happen.

Recommendations

1. Legislation against encroachment

• Strong legislation should urgently be enacted to make encroachment on water bodies a cognizable offense.
• Approval for the layout or building plan on lands located on SWBs should not be given. (Madras High Court).

2. Separate Ministry for Small Water Bodies

• It should be created with adequate funding to conduct periodic repair and rehabilitation works.

3. Tank user’s organization

• Without the participation of farmers who are the main beneficiaries of SWBs, it is difficult to improve their performance.
• Farmers must voluntarily come forward to set up a tank users’ organization and undertake the repairing of SWBs, as followed earlier under the age-old Kudimaramathu system.
• Kudimaramathu system: It is one of the old traditional practices of stakeholders participating in the maintenance and management of irrigation systems.

4. Corporate Social Responsibility

• Corporates are increasingly using water; they should be asked to repair and renovate SWBs under the ambit of corporate social responsibility.

If swift actions are not taken to save SWBs, they will slowly disappear and the water woes will aggravate. Without Small Water Bodies even wells will not have water because the recharge system of the well will collapse.