Odisha Drought Response Report

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Odisha Drought Response Report Emergency Drought Response FORWARD Indo-Global Social Service Society has been working with vulnerable communities on Disaster Risk Reduction and responding to Emergencies for quite a few years. In recent times, emergency responses have included Uttarakhand Landslides, Cyclone Phailin, Kashmir Floods, West Bengal Floods. Apart from this, Emergency response to flood is a regular feature of the interventions in the North East. In 2015-16, IGSSS responded to 5 emergencies in the North East alone. In 2016, IGSSS expanded the scope of its work by responding to slow onset disaster. Several districts in the country were declared drought hit, with Marathwada and Bundelkhand prioritized as the worst hit. As a result, majority of the support was earmarked for these areas. Odisha was also facing massive drought with vast communities in severe water crisis, devastating crop loss and ensuing loss of livelihood. IGSSS’s own areas of operation in Western Odisha specifically Kalahandi and Balangir were one of the worst hit in the state. With Institutional support focussed elsewhere, IGSSS decided to respond to the Drought in Odisha and launched its online resource mobilisation campaign “Odisha Drought Aid”. This was again a first for IGSSS. The entire IGSSS family pitched in and within the short span of 30 days, raised approximately Rs. 20 Lakhs from friends, relations and well wishers. With erratic rains, it was a race against time to prioritise villages for support, site selection and construction of rain water harvesting structures. In this, IGSSS, our esteemed partners and the community rose to the occasion. Old structures were renovated and a few new constructed in time for rains. Though there are several other villages still struggling with water crisis, we feel a measure of pride that together, we could impact the lives in 15 villages in Western Odisha. We are very grateful to our Partners – RCDC, Seba Jagat & AJSA for who made this herculean task possible. We are also thankful to our other Partners in Odisha and other states who had sent in Situation Reports on the Drought which helped us finalise the Intervention. We are thankful to the many individual donors from all corners of the world and in India, for their timely support. Above all, we are thankful to the community, who faced with a difficult choice of abandoning paddy plantation to pitch in and complete the renovation and reconstruction of the Water Harvesting Structures, gave the intervention their full support. As part of IGSSS, all of us feel immense pride and a sense of achievement in the successful Emergency Drought Response. We in the East Zone are particularly thankful to each and every colleague in IGSSS who supported this campaign in the Zone and made it feasible. This is a report on IGSSS’s Emergency Drought Response. It has tried to capture the many learnings that have been garnered from this response. It will be of immense help to us in the years to come as Drought is now a reality and deep water crisis, a global phenomena. In Solidarity, Sukanya Chatterjee, Manager East & Basant Panigrahi, Officer in Charge, Odisha Odisha Emergency Drought Response CONTENT 1. Introduction 2. Geographical situation 3. Weather conditions of the village 4. Drought situation and types 5. Drought mitigation in project villages (WHS and their situation) 6. Impact of drought 7. IGSSS’s Emergency Drought Response 8. Objective of EDR 9. General Details of Project Village 10. Partnerships 11. Duration 12. The Intervention 13. Expected impact 14. Activities undertaken • The Key findings & Lessons Learnt • Plan ahead 15. Challenges 16. Impact of Emergency Drought Response 17. Case Studies & Quotes Odisha Emergency Drought Response 1. Introduction Drought is one of the major natural hazards which occur in almost every climatic region. It affects millions of people and causes significant economic and ecological damage. Drought ranks as the single most common cause of severe food shortages and is regularly listed as a cause in the majority of food emergencies. In recent years, impact of climate change has resulted in frequency as well as severity of droughts. Odisha has been witnessing drought very frequently in the past decades. In Western Odisha where the small land holdings are primarily rain fed, erratic and scanty rainfall results in a drought like situation almost every alternate year. This slow onset disaster cumulatively built up and the rain deficit in 2015-16 created extensive crop loss and severe water crisis in 27 out of the 30 districts in the state. Highest temperatures in recent history were reported in the Western districts of the state as a result surface water sources dried up. Ground water levels fell rapidly making tube wells defunct. This hit the marginal farmers hardest many of whom had to migrate in search of work. 180 farmer deaths were reported in the past couple of years. This was the year where drought had affected many parts of the country. With little institutional support forthcoming, IGSSS launched its own online campaign to mobilise resources. This enabled IGSSS in support with its partner to implement Emergency Drought Response in 15 worst hit villages of Balangir and Kalahandi Districts of Odisha. 2. Geographical situation IGSSS Emergency Drought Relief was been implemented in 15 different villages of Balangir and Kalahandi district of Odisha. The two adjacent districts are in Western Odisha and are predominantly tribal. Balangir is spread over a total geographical area of 6569 sq. km and has a population of 1,648,574 where as Kalahandi has a total geographical area of 7920 sq. Km and encompasses a population of 1,573,054 as per 2011 census data. Balangir district headquarter is situated 330 km far away from state capital Bhubaneswar whereas the district headquarter of Kalahandi is 415 km far away from state capital of Odisha. 3. Weather conditions of the village : Western part of Odisha is popularly known as Tatlagarh (hot zone) due to its high temperature and long dry season. There are three major seasons - summer (March-June), Rainy Season (July- September) and the winter (October-February). It is warm almost throughout the year with maximum temperature hovering between 40-46° C. In recent years, the duration of the hot months have been increasing whereas cold and rainy months decreasing. Temperature has been on the rise day by day with heat waves. The number of hot hours in a day has also been on the rise. Along with widespread deforestation, this has resulted in drying up of water sources in the long summers. The rainfall patterns have changed with too little or too much rains. Lack of proper systems of harvesting rain water, much of the rainfall simply flows away leaving little behind after the rainy season. All of these reasons have resulted in severe to extreme water distress to the population in these two districts. 4. Drought situation and types : Rain Fed Agriculture is the primary livelihood for most part in these villages supplemented by NTFP collection and wage labour. Erratic rainfalls in recent times have affected almost all households. Traditionally, this area has been prone to drought and the people had developed their own coping mechanisms. However in recent times, the frequencies of droughts have increased to almost every alternate year. The duration of drought too has increased and its impact felt upto 2 or even 3 years drying up river, pond, well, tube well, farm pond. Water shortage has resulted in extensive crop damage. The variations in temperature and rainfall have affected seed germination and harvest. As the rainfall was less than normal in July 2016 and erratic in the first fortnight of August 2016, operations like transplantation and other activities were stopped. Sporadic rainfall in the latter half of August raised hope among the farmers who started transplantation of saplings. The prolonged dry spell continued and resulted in drought. Crop damage and loss, inability to preserve seeds, compensation inadequate and slow in coming has led to extreme distress in the area. High diurnal temperatures have also affected availability of NTFP. Substantial number of farmers have been induced to take up cash crops (mainly cotton) increasing their indebtedness. Loss of their crop has also sharply impacted their market dependency. The Odisha Emergency Drought Response already Families have been forced to sell their livestock and migrate elsewhere in search of sustenance. 5. Drought mitigation in project villages (WHS and their situation): Every village has atleast one traditional water body. Since time immemorial, the traditional water bodies have conserved rainwater to meet the water needs of the people, to recharge the groundwater and to provide irrigation to the crops. The traditional water conservation mechanism has been declining rapidly over the years due to the compulsions of the developing society like the changing land usage and modern agricultural practices. However indiscriminate use of water, lack of maintenance has in most cases has caused the water to dry up and led to its disuse. Slowly over time, the community has even forgotten its existence. Community has on their own efforts tried to renovate defunct well and tube well for temporary use. The handful of families having resources tries to save their crops by irrigating their land from nearby water sources if water is available. But these are at best temporary coping mechanism. There is very low level of knowledge on drought mitigation in these villages. And recently these multiple issues including extreme weather have cumulatively resulted in extreme water distress in the area. 6. Impact of drought : The acute drought situation has affected all households but its impact on the landless, marginal and small farmers has been more acute. The agricultural sector had suffered a near complete collapse due to drought.
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