46-Water Conservation.

Abstract

The rapid depletion of ground water is usually underestimated and even ignored. Policy and legislative interventions are required to be integrated with groundwater and surface watershed initiatives. At the micro level, the growing competition among irrigation, domestic and industrial uses of water had led to over extraction of ground water that had receded the groundwater table below the critical level, forcing the State government to declare some of the area as a dark zone. Lack of traditional rights and practices in the contemporary modernization process is noted to be the main cause of failure of many modern systems. Thus, need arises to regenerate and multiply the traditional ones. In response to the impending crisis, the people of Alwar district revived a traditional watershed technology "Johad", to restore the ecological balance of the region. Johad is a traditional watershed practice in Rajasthan. This local initiative has proved to be far more rewarding than conventional watershed approaches. An organization Tarun Bharat Sangh (TBS) has played its crucial role in reviving the Johad practice in this region. The paper presents the some information of work done by the TBS. The phenomenal success that TBS has achieved in mobilizing the village community to construct over 5600 Johads and manage the water resource also proved to be the greatest strength of its work.