Overall approach of the project
Collection of Secondary literature of the Sigur Plateau & Analysis
Collection of Socio Economic Data & Analysis
Collection of Physical data about drinking water & the Analysis
Data Reconciliation and Digitization for Maps.
Overall approach of the project
Surveyed all existing drinking water supply situation in the Sigur plateau. Flow rate of streams were measured which are perennial as well as seasonal. Visited all the water structures made by the respective line departments like Forest Department, TWAD board, Panchayat board and check dams built by the FD or HADP. This was done to see all the amount of water which is flowing towards the Sigur plateau.
Collection of Secondary literature of the Sigur Plateau
Lots of secondary information was collected for the same from various line departments like from the forest department the actual structure building in terms of check dams & the money spend on the structure & the year which has been built from starting to ending through different schemes. Through the TWAD board we have information about the supply of water in terms of LPCD to various villages in the Sigur area. From the Union Panchayats & the respective panchayat boards we had information about their implementation work done in the region.
Collection of Socio Economic Data
All socio economic details of the working villages were surveyed to make appropriate intervention while working with drinking water components in these villages. Their occupation & their livelihoods is studied. From the analysis of this we find most of the people are dependant on other external resources to fend for them selves, they have to go far away for seeking work & wages. Say about 430 families live inside these seven villages & the total population here is around 1361 people, out of which the male composes of 497 & the female total is 473. The children below the age of 15 years are 391. Only few people are ntfp collectors and that too the forest department has stopped collection of these ntfps nine years back giving importance to the wildlife aspect of this part in the district. So people have to migrate outside in search of jobs or for daily wages instead of just confining to what ever they have inside their own village. The revenue villages like Vazhaithottam, Kurumbarpallam, Mavanhalla, & Masinagudi area well placed in terms of easy accessibility to the business community who will buy their cattle or the cow dung which fetches fairly good price & then transported to the nearby state. But that is not the case with the forest settlements which have their own limitations to sell their commodities.
Collection of Physical data about drinking water
The physical parameters like constructed tanks, GLRs, water distribution systems, overhead tanks through the different panchayats of this regions & other check dams or other structures from HMS (Hydro Metric Services) to check the flow rate & the siltation in the streams. There are three Silt Monitoring stations in this region built by the HMS. There are many check dams in the Sigur area inside the reserved forests which are built by the forest department. Small percolation tanks are built for want of water to the wild animals during the monsoon season. There are big two storage tanks situated in the Masinagudi town where the water from the Singara hydro power house is let out through the channel & this water is pumped from this source & is being distributed to many villages in & around the Masinagudi town. The TWAD board has built many structures like overhead tanks etc & handed over to the local panchayats for maintenance other logistics.
Data Reconciliation and Digitization for Maps
After collecting all the required data like the cadastral maps from the Masinagudi panchayat through the village administrator officer we had digitized the area for studying the area in terms of land use pattern & individual land holdings of this region. Many maps has been generated for this area like the drainage map which falls under the watershed area code numbers of 41, 50,51,52,55,56,59,60 micro water sheds prioritized by the Hill Area Development Program in this region of this district. HADP has termed this area very low priority area from rest of the watersheds of this district thus neglecting the importance of water in this kind of fragile landscape. We had collected geo data using GPS. Measured all the perimeters of the forest villages & that of the revenue villages to ascertain the peoples land holdings from the settlement perspective. All the individual land holdings were also surveyed & mapped. Major land use & land cover maps has been generated like showing specifically areas of agricultural lands, revenue lands, forest lands with village boundaries. On top of this layer the individual land holdings has been incorporated. All the streams have been digitized whether it is perennial or seasonal. All the bore wells or open wells, even structures have been recorded in GPS and an inventory has been made & mapped showing their spatial distribution in this plateau.
