Genesis of Watersehd development Programme : an overviwe of Government efforts / Sarika Singh, V. V. Kulkarni and Minakshi Mahajan

Creating the sense of social responsibility among the stake holders in villagers for their own development is the main focus of Watershed Development Programme (WDP) in India. The policies related to watershed have been changed as the approach of government for development has been changed since last thirty years. The emerging programme's of watershed to overcome the crises of water and soil erosion has also been changed. The various approaches to the policy and the prevalent watershed development programme have been analyzed in view of the changed approach. Contents of the programme, implication strategy of the programme, post implementation management strategy, budgetary allocations and major milestones have been discussed thoroughly in this paper. The paper also highlights the major short falls of policies and approaches and concludes that unless the people come forward to shoulder their responsibilities at every stage of watershed development programme the chances of success in rural development are very less. Therefore it has been suggested that the stakeholders are to be considered as active partners with pivotal responsibility for any developmental programmes.