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From hariyali to neeranchal: report of the technical committee on watershed programmes in India

Parthasarathy Committee has attempted an exhaustive review of the experience of the watershed programme in India. While traveling to a large number of watersheds, Committee met all the state governments, heard and seen the work of leading NGOs, support agencies, think-tanks and researchers on watershed development, met bilateral agencies such as Danish International Development Agency (DANIDA) and DFID and bodies such as Federation of Indian Chambers of Commerce and Industry (FICCI) and Confederation of Indian Industries (CII) organisations The focus should have been to see and talk to successful small farmers for ideas to write policies for replication among small farmers, following local knowledge and farming systems. The review has revealed a large number of areas where major improvements are called for in India’s watershed development programme. Based on this review and consultations, Committee recommended various measures to be taken up to maximize the effectiveness of the watershed program in improving the livelihoods of the resource poor.