An engineer s evaluation
Few know about the economic benefits of building johads. An investment of Rs 100 per capita on johads raises the economic production in a village by as much as Rs 400 per capita per annum. This was the finding of G D Agrawal, former professor and head of the civil engineering department at the Indian Institute of Technology in Kanpur, who assessed Tarun Bharat Sangh's (TBS's) work in Alwar.
In August 1995 Agrawal took up an intensive evaluation of water harvesting structures built by villagers with TBS's help. His study covered 36 villages where TBS has been working. Agrawal's report, An Engineer's Evaluation of Water Conservation Efforts of Tarun Bharat Sangh in 36 Villages of Alwar District, is based on extensive data collection and scientific analysis. Here are the edited versions of some of the very pointed remarks in the report about TBS's work and the reasons for its success:
- An interesting aspect is the extremely low costs at which these structures have been created, which vary between a low of Rs 0.2 per cubic metre (cum) of storage capacity to a high of Rs 3 per cum. The overall average cost for the structures studied comes to Rs 0.95 per cum. No engineering organisation would be able to build water harvesting structures at such low costs.
- It appears amazing that as many as 36 per cent of the water harvesting structures had the right capacity, even when no calculations had been done, and 13 per cent had a capacity which was more than required. As all crucial engineering decisions regarding the structures were taken by the villagers and TBS workers on the basis of their traditional knowledge, experience and
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