Watershed Development in India : An Approach Evolving through Experience

This report analyses the experiences and
lessons from three World Bank-Supported watershed
development projects in the Indian states of Karnataka,
Himachal Pradesh, and Uttarakhand.5 The primary reason for
the analysis was to guide the development and execution of
new watershed programs in India, including new
Bank-supported state-level operations in Uttarakhand and
Karnataka, and a proposed national project now under
preparation. Accordingly, it was important to deepen the
knowledge base about large-scale, community-led watershed
development in order to share that knowledge with key
stakeholders both inside and outside of the World Bank.
Another important reason was the immediate and growing
concern over water resources and their management in India
and the question of how well watershed development programs
internalize these concerns. A third impetus was the nexus
between rural poverty and rainfed agriculture and the
important role that watershed development programs are to
fulfill in the development of sustainable rural livelihoods.