Community Groundwater Irrigation Sector Project (CGISP) is the project of Government of Nepal being implemented with the financial support of Asian Development Bank. CGISP is being implemented in twelve terai districts in Eastern and Central Development Region of Nepal. CIDA is providing grant support for Technical Assistance (TA) through the Canadian Centre for International Studies and Cooperation–Nepal (CECI–Nepal). TA provided to implement the Social Mobilization (SM) component of CGISP involving different NGOs experienced in social mobilization. This component facilitates target household to organize into water user’s group (WUG or STW Groups and water user’s association-WUA) and install group-based shallow-tube-wells (STWs) to ensure irrigation facility for agricultural activities/income generation.
The main objective of the contractual agreement is to facilitate the shallow tube-well (STW) groups in social mobilization work for implementing CGISP. In this context, CGISP/CECI entrusted DEPROSC-Nepal to provide Social Mobilization services in Rautahat on October 2001. During later periods, the program expanded in adjoining districts namely Parsa, Bara and Sarlahi. In due course of time, DEPROSC/N phased out from Sarlahi, Rautahat in July 2005 and Parsa in July 2006 continuing its activities in Bara, Morang and Jhapa Districts.
In the mean time, DEPROSC/N extended its micro-finance services in Bara and Bhaktapur with the approval from NRB and it started financing STW group (Irrigation Loan Product) from its own resources. It has also made agreement with CECI for social mobilization in CGISP and to provide micro-finance in three districts of Eastern Development Region (Morang and Jhapa from November 2006 and Sunsari from January 2007). DEPROSC-Nepal provides both social mobilization and credit services to Water User Groups for STW installation DEPROSC-Nepal was responsible mainly for social mobilization for STW group formation, demand collection, provide credit services for STW installation, loan processing, and STW installation. As agreed, DEPROSC-Nepal has been providing services in accordance with CGISP norms to achieve target objectives.
The project has poor and small farmers as the main focus of its activities. Main goals of the project were economic growth and poverty reduction in the target area. Its specific objectives were,
- To increase agriculture production on a sustainable basis
- To improve income level of small farmers having less than one hectare of land through demand drive STW management based on stakeholders’ participation and
- To develop capacity of WUGs and WUAs to manage resources, equipment and inputs for enhancing agricultural productivity through groundwater irrigation.
Project Area
DEPROSC has been worked in selected subprojects of 6 districts (Rautahat, Parsa, Bara, Sarlahi, Morang and Jhapa). Sub-projects (project VDCs) for the project are identified by CGISP/PMU & Groundwater Field Office (GFO) of Department of Irrigation (DOI). During the project period, DEPROSC Nepal has worked in a total of 216 VDCs and 2 municipalities (46 VDCs in Rautahat, 40 VDCs in Parsa, 50 VDCs in Bara, 19 in Sarlahi, 13 in Morang and 16 in Jhapa districts respectively).
During the project period, a total of 2549 STWs (547 in Rautahat, 401 in Parsa, 1230 in Bara, 179 in Sarlahi, 44 in Morang and 148 in Jhapa) has been installed and handed over to the WUGs.
DEPROSC Nepal has recently extended its micro-finance activities in Bara and initiated financing STWs mobilizing its own resources. In Jhapa and Morang districts, DEPROSC itself is financing WUGs for installation of STWs. DEPROSC/N has extended its micro-finance activities in Bara, Jhapa and Morang and initiated financing STWs mobilizing its own resources. During the FY 2006/07, a total of loan amount NRs 7,040,000.00 has been disbursed to 491 WUGs (299 groups in Bara, 148 groups in Jhapa and 41 groups in Morang districts respectively). This has solved PFI problem to some extent.
STWs would be financed through a credit program requiring no formal collateral from the group. Credit for other inputs, i.e. seed and fertilizers, would also be provided. CGISP is flexible in that it would also service eligible individual farmers as well as those who would prefer to install boreholes only or invest in mobile pump sets. The approach of this project is financially sustainable thus provides for a long-term solution to the development of groundwater resources in the country. Although the credit for STW installation and other inputs does not involve any subsidy, mobilizing farmers into groups and training them requires considerable effort and resources. This particular component of the project is, however, subsidized through a grant from the Government of Canada. CGISP is successfully implemented project and a number of factors were ensured a long-term sustainability of its approach because
(i) the cost of social mobilization decreased significantly as the methods are refined and replicated at a much larger area,
(ii) drilling techniques improved, became more efficient and cost effective, and
(iii) the cost of pump sets decreased due to their import from a variety of competitive manufacturers and increased competition among suppliers.