Training

Balrampur is one of the districts of Chhattisgarh that has not only a high percentage of ST presence of 64 % but also has 93.5 % of household whose income are less than RS 5000 per month. Adding to this low level of income, the practice of rainfed agriculture is increasing the poverty dimension and making the people more vulnerable to climate shocks. Sargaon Gram Panchayat of Sankargarh block is no exception to the level of social vulnerability aspect is concerned as out of 308 HHs, 288 HHs i.e 93.5 % are those households whose monthly income are less than Rs 5000 and 35.5 % of the HHs are PVTGs and 4.5 % of the land area has irrigation facility. PVTGs are considered to be the poorest of poor HHs.

The present case study is based on the success of an individual farm pond sanctioned to Mr Jesus Tigga in the Financial Year 2018-19 from MGNREGA under the BRLF programme. The cost of the farm pond is Rs 2.97 Lakh. The team found that the slope of the farm land is below 3 % having runoff coefficients as 0.5%and the catchment area of the farm pond is 1.5 Ha, so the farm pond has a dimension of 30x30x3 m. The storage capacity of the farm pond after assuming 30 % loss in seepage and evaporation loss is 3018m­­3 and pond capacity is 3018 m­­3. The  estimated capacity of harvested water is around 1500 m­­3  and has the potential to provide life saving irrigation to 1.5 Ha of paddy crop in case of intermittent dry spell while in case of normal  weather conditions, the farm pond has the potential to irrigate 0.3 – 0.4 ha land during Rabiseason. To make the farm pond climate resilient he did chicken pea cultivation on the bunds of the farm pond.

The SGVS team through BRLF programme facilitated several training programme for the farmers of the GP like improved agriculture practices through SRI method of paddy cultivation anddifferent methods of mulch for vegetable cultivation likeraised bed vegetable farming.

Voice of the Beneficiary

Jesus Tiga is 55 years old belonging to ST community and has a family of five members.  He does farming and wage labour under MGNREGA to maintain his family basic needs. He has 10 acres of land, out of which 9.5 acres of land are cultivable area and 0.5 acre of land has irrigated through local nearby nala. Before the construction of farm pond he used to get around 45 quintals of paddy but now after the construction of farm pond in 2019- 20 he harvested around 60 quintals of paddy. He has used the water of his farm pond at the time of sowing and even during the intermittent dry spells. He did peheta on the bunds of the farm pond and earned Rs 8000.  Apart from this he did vegetable cultivation like Barbati, Tomato, Bhindi, Karela and Lauki and harvested 1.20 quintals and earned Rs 3750 from it.

Jesus Das and his wife under MGNREGA have worked for 49 days in FY 2019-20 and earned an amount of Rs 9300as wages. The family is very happy as the farm pond has helped to overcome their water problems for irrigation purposes. Initially he was apprehensive that their land would get damaged if they dug their land for a farm pond as most of the farm pond constructed earlier did not hold any water for taking second crop  but constant persuasion by the BRLF  team has brought wonders for their family as they are getting multiple benefits from the farm pond. 

The income shown in the table above is just a beginning of the journey while there is lots of scope of earning through farm pond and it is already planned and calculated by Jijas Tigga. Pisciculture, crops and fruits from the bunds of the farm pond, 2nd crop and vegetable in rabi season are the hopes of income in the future.