Programme to improve rural livelihoods
44 Micro Watershed projects have been identified covering 134 villages.
Kakinada: As many as 14 Mega Watershed Projects, covering 55,526 hectares will be developed for degraded natural resources in East Godavari district. The projects have been taken up under the Integrated Watershed Man-agement Programme of the Centre. The project is being taken up to restore the ecological balance by harnessing, conserving and developing deg-raded resources such as soil, vegetative cover, water and create sustainable liv-elihoods for asset less poor.
The officials identified 14 projects out of which 13 will be taken up by government and one has been entrusted to a voluntary organisation in the agency area.
“The project will be implemented in three phases such as preparatory phase, work phase and consolidation phase. Now, it is in the preparatory phase and the project will be launched within two or three months,’’ said Assistant Project Director C. Bhavani.
She said that already committees and staff have been appointed for the impleme-ntation of the project. The detailed project reports we-re prepared and got Grama Sabha approvals and after online verification, 17 out of a total 44 micro watersheds which were found as per norms specified were acc-orded online approval for the work, she said.
The main objective of the watershed programme is to improve rural livelihoods through participatory wat-ershed management with focus on integrated farming systems and conserving na-tural resources for enhancing income, productivity and livelihood security in a sustainable manner. In order to achieve the objectives of watershed programme, various treatment measures and interventions have been undertaken for protecting conserving and developing natural resources and improving livelih-oods of the rural poor. “The farmers would be supplied saplings to grow plantati-ons for their livelihood and landless people will be provided alternative livelihood programmes such as poultry, fish proce-ssing, dairy farms, nurse-ries, block plantation, barr-en hill afforestation, avenue plantation, bund plantation, live fencing, dry land horticulture, fodder development among others,’’ she said.
( Source : dc correspondent )
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