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DAM-L Khatri: a unique catchment-based system with its own (fwd)
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From: Right to Water <right-to-water@iatp.org>
To: dianne@sandelman.ottawa.on.ca
Subject: Khatri: a unique catchment-based system with its own
Date: Fri, 11 May 2001 11:39:36 -0500
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Right to Water (right-to-water@iatp.org) Posted: 05/11/2001 By svarghese@iatp.org
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The Horizontal Wells on Steep Slopes by Dr. Sudhirendar Sharma
Should the State provide incentives for catchment-based governance of water
or encourage state-sponsored capital-intensive rainwater harvesting
projects? The choice is limited.
Considered to be a traditional system of rainwater harvesting and storage
in the sub-Himalayan region of India, the horizontal wells in the Kangra
region of Himachal Pradesh are beginning to gain respect of the beleaguered
municipality. While the government’s water taps run dry for most part of
the hot summer months in the region, these wells stand firm in their
promise to provide drinking water.
Called Khatri or diggi, the system is unique to pockets in Kangra and
Hamirpur districts in the mountainous state of Himachal Pradesh. Located at
the foothills, the khatri stores water that filters down through the near
porous rocks. Most hills in this region are made up of coarse-grained
sandstone and quartofeldspathic rocks. Interestingly, both are good
conductors of water, a feature that has been long known to the people in
this region.
Though annual rainfall in this region is as high as 2200 mm, water scarcity
is an acute problem for most part of the year. However, Khatri has stood
out as a sustainable answer to these conditions. It is a cave-like
structure dug horizontally along the hill. The opening of the cave is wide
enough for human entry, the inside has three to four cubic metre open
space. The basin in the cave is couple of feet deep to store trickling
water from all sides. A typical khatri can store as much as 30,000 to
50,000 litres of filtered water.
Khatri is a product of ingenious socio-engineering. Not only do communities
know the exact location in the hills where a khatri could be dug, they are
precise about its size and storage too. On a particular hill, the khatris
are dug at different points but at the same elevation. A new khatri cannot
be dug at a level below the existing ones because the water in the khatri
above will trickle down to the lower level. No lining is done along the
walls of the khatri as it may prevent the water oozing in.
Khatri is not part of the history yet. Not only are the old khatris still
working, new ones continue to get dug by the community. While community
khatris are left open, family khatris usually have a small gate with a
lock. Though communities don’t mind municipal supply, a khatri for them
is equivalent of a fixed-deposit they can encash at the time of crisis. It
is, however, another matter that water crisis is common to this region of
varying altitude, from 2000 to 4000 feet.
Khatri is a unique catchment-based system that has its own governance
structure. Ironically, the water bureaucracy that relies on engineering
structures and metallic pipes bypasses such systems. Thanks to a
water-epidemic couple of years ago and sporadic incidences of dead cattle
in the storage tanks, the system is bouncing back to prominence, however,
in limited conditions.
Himachal Pradesh is the first State in India to have enacted legislation
for mandatory harvesting of rooftop rainwater for all new buildings, way
back in the mid-1990s. In doing so, it only strengthened the rainwater
harvesting companies and allowed the State to govern rooftop rainwater too.
It could have served the cause better by letting its line departments learn
and participate in catchment-based governance at the grassroots.
----------------------------------------------------------------------
Dr Sudhirendar Sharma, Ph.D, has been researching water issues from an
eco-historical and governance perspective. This article was first published
in Sujhbujh â€" the journal on peoples’ innovations. He is a member of
the Global Water Partnership and can be reached at: Energy Environment
Group, 7 Triveni, A6 Paschim Vihar, New Delhi 110 063, India. Tel:
91-11-5250494. Email: sudhirendar@vsnl.net
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