2. The Project Team
• Vishal Narain
– Economics, Rural Management,
– PhD (legal anthropology and irrigation)
• Sreoshi Singh
– Geographer with specialisation in Regional
Development, MPhil in urban development
and Planning.
– To still involve/hire
– Research Associate or a community organizer
– Preferably a first degree/background in the natural
sciences to complement the team skills
3. The growth of Gurgaon city
• Gurgaon is projected as a millenium city
• Major outsourcing hub of northwest India
– Most preferred outsourcing and high-tech destination in North India
– Home to 80% of the foreign investment of the state of Haryana
• Drawn a large number of MNCs and corporates that have located
their headquarters/manufacturing plants in the city
– Hero Honda, Maruti, Alcatel, IBM, General Electric, Nestle, Pepsi, Coca-
Cola
• Visual landscape
– tall skyscrapers co-existing with village settlement areas and
agricultural fields gradually disappearing
• Plagued by poor infrastructure, and absence of a public transport
system
• Frontiers of the city still expanding
– 56 residential sectors exist, another 56 on the anvil
– Enormous implications for water and land resources
4. Characteristics of the city
• Three major reasons behind its growth
– Proximity to the national capital and
international airport
– Initiatives of state government like policies for
SEZs
– Real estate boom since the 1980s
5. The periurban water issues
• Major Multiple claimants on water resources
– Residential areas/real estate
– glitzy malls
– Recreation, amusement parks and tourist facilities
– Farm-houses
– nature conservation (SNP)
• Peripheral villages have lost agricultural/grazing
lands
– for the above purposes
– for WTPs
– For canals to bring water to the WTPs
6. Periurban water issues in Gurgaon
• Falling water tables:
– 70% of Gurgaon’s water needs are met trhough groundwater
– Water table falling
• Rural-urban water conflicts
– Farmers breaching the Gurgaon channel that brings water to the
Basai WTP
• Rural-urban water flows
– Water tankers a common sight
– Groundwater used for irrigation now transported for nurseries to
cater to urban residents
• Urban-rural water flows
– Sewerage irrigation common in periurban parts of Gurgaon
• Pre-emption of water by farm-houses using expensive
technologies, depriving locals of access
7. Sadhraana Village
• Population of 3500 people
– 425 households
• Ahir, Pandat, Rajput, Lohaar, Nai, Harijan,
Balmeek
• Major crops grown
– wheat, mustard, sorghum, pearl-millet, vegetables
and lentils
• No irrigation canal or sewage based irrigation
– only groundwater
8. Land use change over the last two
decades
• 80 acres: Sultanpur National Park
• 600 acres: farm-houses
• 150 acres: Reliance SEZ
• Left with about 40% of the net cultivated
area recorded in the 1960s
• Land and water appropriated by the urban
elite
9. Major pressures on groundwater
• Land and water nexus
– Land below fresh water is of the highest price
• Tubewells dug for Sultanpur National Park
• Farm-houses major appropriator of groundwater
– Extract water using submersible pump-sets not
affordable by locals
• Equity implications
– Transport water over 3-4 km to their farm-houses
using underground pipes when the farm-houses are
located over saline groundwater
10. Impacts of growing pressures
– Fall in water table over last decade
• 60 ft to 100 ft
• 20 ft to 60 ft
– Farmers accessing saline groundwater
• unfit for agriculture and livestock
– Small and marginal farmers unable to afford
the high costs of extraction
• a submersible pump-set: Rs 100000 to Rs 125000
11. Responses/Adaptation strategies
• Switch to sprinkler irrigation sets
• Leave land fallow
• Take only one irrigated crop per year
• Borrow from friends/relatives
– Social capital eroded
12. Budheda
• 725 households and 5500 people
• Rao saab, Jaat, Nai, Dhobi, Khaati, Jogi,
Harijan, Balmeek, Kumbhaar, Ahir and Pandat
• Crops grown
– wheat, mustard, burseem, pearl-millet, vegetables
• Many sources of irrigation depending on location
of fields
– tubewells/submersibles/ urban sewage
13. Land use change
• Major source of land to supply water to the city:
bears its ecological foot-print
– 129 acres: WTP for Gurgaon city
– 30 acres: second round of acquisition
– 12 acres of grazing land for the same plant
• Implications for landless and minority groups that use them
for livestock
– 17 acres for each of the two canals to carry water for
WTP at Basai that is the major supplier of water for
Gurgaon
– Left with just about a fourth of its net cultivated area
14. Implications
• The Gurgaon Water Supply Channel passes
through the village to carry water to Basai WTP
for Gurgaon city
– source of opportunity and conflict
– raised local water table
– pipe outlet installed for village pond
– Tube wells installed to benefit from water table rise
• Had to be removed when the NCR channel was dug
• Highlights vulnerability of farmers to uncertain water supply
15. Sultanpur
• Well-known for the SNP
• Pressures from the Reliance SEZ and national
park: man-animal conflict
• People living in the dhaanis particularly
vulnerable to land acquisition
• The Sultanpur lake, home to over 250 bird
species is now dry
– major noise among conservationists
– reported widely in the media
– Very good case of multiple claimants over scarce
water and resulting conflicts
16. Ghata village
• A major lake is now dry because of less
rainfall and conversion of lakebed to
residential area
• This lake used to be full of water in
monsoons and used for agriculture during
rest of the year
• Authorities now building a fresh lake and
drainage system
• Drying of lake reported widely in the media
17. Waziarabad village
• Now under the Gurgaon Municipal Corporation
• All agricultural lands acquired; livestock rearing and
poultry are still common
• Large influx of migrant settlers to cater to domestic
needs of urban residential areas
• Former cultivators now buy vegetables and fruits from a
daily evening market
• With pasturelands gone, fodder obtained from parks of
residential colonies
• Water used for small kitchen gardens, nurseries to cater
to urban residential areas
• Water tankers supplying water to residential areas
common
18. Future Work Plan
• Explore further research locations around Gurgaon in
different directions
• Use that as basis for finally narrowing down to a cluster
of 3 villages based on potential richness of data and
comparative insights
– E.g. differing levels of periurban
– Different kinds of issues: use cases as ‘archetypes’ or
representations of the kinds of water insecurity experienced by
periurban residents
– Or villages adjacent to each other/close proximity to use the
concept of a ‘periurban locale’ comprising villages with
supportive and mutually constitutive flows and networks among
them
• Show how even adjacent locations exhibit differing patterns of
vulnerability depending on local factors, access to assets
19. Methodology
• Predominantly a qualitative research design with
a mix of participatory and ethnographic
approaches
– On lines presented yesterday
• Smaller quantitative studies within that based on
what needs to be quantified and why
• The qualitative component continues through
the study and does not end after the scoping
study, i.e. it is more than just a means of
narrowing down to the quantitative study
20. Specific applications of the
qualitative study
• In-depth household interviews to understand
– elements of risk, exposure, coping capacity
• Give leads into a VCI relevant to the project/periurban
settings
– The livelihoods portfolio across urban and rural
assets, patterns and role of remittances
– how different members of the household
(men/women) experience vulnerability
• Break away from household as a unit of analysis informing
conventional, structured interviews
21. Methodology
• Focus group meetings
– Examine how different groups experience
water insecurity differently
– Identify the vulnerable groups
• Key informant interviews
– Understand land transactions, forms of
influence used to acquire land
– Insecurity of land tenure shaping water
insecurity
22. Methodology
• Direct observation
– Observation of irrigation and water collection activities
to understand
• actual access
• conflicts and their resolution
• user interface with technology
• Semi-structured interviews with Panchayat
members, municipal officers
– understand their perspectives
– identify institutional lacunae
– possible interventions
23. Methodology
• PRA exercises
– To understand livelihoods (seasonality analyses)
– patterns of poverty and access (wealth-ranking)
– climate variability and changes in water supply (trend
lines)
– major impacts of development interventions on the
villages (time line)
– Institutional relationships and gaps (venn diagram)
– Changes in resource use and profile (village
transects, resource maps)
– Basis of PAP (Participatory Action Planning)
24. At the end of next six months, I
should have
• A macro level description of land use change in
Gurgaon and its implications for water use
• A brief description of villages visited and major
issues
• Final selection of research sites with basic
baseline information and rationale for selection
• Listing of key issues for further investigation
(narrowing down and focus)
• Work plan for the remainder of the study
