Local responses to too much and too little water in the greater Himalayan region
Most innovations happen at the local level without employers. Access to telecommunications has helped in
outside help because state extension services are early warning about floods.
effectively absent, extension officers are overworked,
government seed distribution centres hardly function
and even if they do, do not provide seeds on time.
NREGS and other poverty alleviation programmes
The quality of seeds distributed by private traders is not
and schemes
monitored.
Various poverty alleviation and environmental
management policies and programmes could increase
Access to markets and food storage facilities
the resilience of people in disaster-prone areas. The
National Rural Employment Guarantee Scheme (NREGS)
Inadequate roadways and improper transportation is one of the largest social security programmes in the
facilities have a direct impact on access to markets. In world. It provides 100 days of employment locally to
most cases, producers are forced to sell their products households in all the districts of India. Besides alleviating
within the village or in nearby villages. Thus, they have poverty, this scheme creates community and household
little opportunity to negotiate for better prices. Although assets that can be used in dealing with floods. However,
the community has its own household food storage in practice in the study villages, inefficiency and
system, there are no cold storage facilities at the study corruption in the bureaucracy has prevented the scheme
sites for long-term storage. Therefore, poor access to from being implemented fully and from achieving
markets and lack of adequate long-term food storage its ultimate objective. Some structures being built
facilities constrain market potentials, and adaptation. through this scheme lack the quality that could enable
adaptation.
Improvement of road and railways facilitate
The implementation of other programmes, such as the
migration
distribution of subsidised food grains for families below
The rural infrastructure has improved during the last
the poverty line through the public distribution system
three decades. The improved transportation system has
and a housing scheme, happens in ways at the ground
facilitated labour mobility to areas with potential labour
level that defeat their purpose. A possible cause is
demand and has increased access to markets and
corruption and inefficiency in the bureaucracy.
other facilities. However, despite increased investment
in infrastructure, large areas of the region remain
Lack of adequate infrastructure for education
inaccessible.
People with education and skills get better jobs when
Rural banking and easy transmission of remittances
they migrate, while others only get opportunities for
Banking in the rural areas has improved greatly.
manual labour and are more prone to exploitation.
Households have used remittances to develop their
Illiteracy is the main cause of low adaptive capacity of
assets in certain sectors, which has improved their
the people in the area.
capacity to adapt to floods and droughts. However,
some problems remain. Those individuals who are poor
Large sections of the population in the study sites do not
and illiterate have difficulty opening bank accounts. They
have access to education despite increased budgets and
have no option but to depend on sending remittances
spending on education and the introduction of literacy
through people holding bank accounts. Sometimes, this
programmes. The situation is worst in the flood-prone
leads to pilferage of their hard-earned income. Despite
areas of north Bihar. In a large number of inaccessible
the growing reach of nationalised banks in rural areas,
villages, absenteeism among teachers is common.
they have often failed to benefit poor and marginalised
communities. Most poor people have had to depend on
Conclusion and Way Forward
informal village moneylenders to obtain of credit.
Conventional flood control structures changed the agro-
ecology of the Koshi basin, increased the frequency
Rural telecommunication system
and intensity of water related stress and hazards, and
In the study areas, improvements in telecommunication
increased the area that is flood-prone or waterlogged.
have brought access to a mobile telephone network that
Erosion and sand deposition have put huge areas out of
enables the population to keep in touch with potential
cultivation temporarily or permanently. The embankment
40
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