A story from Kulohari Village, Dakshin Dinajpur

     Kulohari is a remote village under Kumarganj Block of Dakshin Dinajpur District. Despite having a  perennial water source of Atrayee River, majority of the residents are small and marginal farmers living hand to mouth. Paddy is the only crop  grown during monsoon season which gives a comparatively  low economic return to the farmers possesing small and marginal land holdings. Further aggravating the woes, the Rabi season mostly remain dry bringing a complete halt to the agricultural activities. The village was desperately in need of a water structure. 

   

     The plight of the residents of Kulohari Village finally reached the ears of district officials of West Bengal Accelerated Development of Minor Irrigation Project(WBADMIP), a mega project funded by World Bank and implemented by Water Resource Investigation and Development Department(WRID&D), Govt. of West Bengal. Based on the mass petition submitted by the residents, Kulohari Village was selected for a mini River Lift Irrigation(RLI) project with the aim to bring the water from Atrayee River to the village. As a part of institutional development a Water User Association(WUA) was formed with the name Kulohari Water User Association consisting of 71 members  with  35 % comprising of females. The mini RLI was handed over to the WUA in August 2015.

 Once water is made available, the next mission for the district Project officials was to ensure food and livelihood security in the project village through sustainable use of the water. Under WBADMIP project guidelines, the beneficiaries in the project villages are entitled to avail Agriculture Support so that they can enhance their income from their agricultural land. After a thorough survey and discussion with the locals, a crop plan was prepared by DPMU agri experts giving more priorities to more remunerative crops of vegetables and cereals instead of paddy. Crops such as wheat, maize, Brinjal, Cabbage, cauliflower, Chilli etc were recommended which have lesser water consumption and also fetch a much better price in the market.

Local farmer, Ananda Roy

"Earlier from 3 bigha(1.2 acre) plot of land ,  I used to earn a maximum amount of INR 4000 a year from paddy cultivation, but after the implementation of the project I earn upto INR 20,000 from Cauliflower and cabbage cultivation in Rabi, thanks to ADMI Project", Ananda Roy, a farmer from Kulohari Village.


Availability of water has led a paradigm shift in the perception towards agriculture among the villagers. The old traditional habit of resorting to single cropping is gradually replaced by crop diversification thus bringing a change to the socio-economic scenario of the village.