Jaladhar Model, or, 5% Model ,or, Hapa for Water Conservation

The 5% model for water conservation ,locally known as hapa in the districts of Bankura and Purulia, is an area of great improvisation in the field of agriculture- water conservation in particular and sustainable development in general. Here, the farmer in possession of a plot/plots of land dedicate 5% of land under his possession, adjacent to the area he intend to cultivate crops. This water so stored is used for irrigation of the adjacent land belonging to the farmer. This results in self sufficiency, recharges ground water, and if done on a massive scale with number of hapas in adjacent plots, the result in reduction of soil erosion in the locale, by reducing the run off velocity of rain water, especially in undulating terrain so common in Bankura, Purulia and some parts of Birbhum and Midnapore.

In Bankura district, especially in the gram panchayet of Andharthole under Bankura I block and in some GPs of Bankura District there has been a major shift of priority towards "hapa" construction in place of building checkdams along the natural canals called "jore"s provided by the undulating topography of the terrain. This entailed almost a psychological revolution on part of the villagers, they had to change their mindset so long attuned to construction of checkdams.

A checkdam do cost approximately 20 times the cost of construction of a hapa. Further, there are maintenence cost of a checkdam. This is generally annual in nature. For each checkdam, the cost of such maintenence is almost 10% of the preliminary construction cost. Not to say of the costs that may accrue due to faulty construction which may result in loss of huge chunk of agrarian land due to soil erosion caused by the huge load of water gathered at the checkdam. The land generally belonging to poor farmers with plots of land just adjacent to the checkdam. It has got its concomitant legal aspects too.

Moreover, the water that has been collected at the site of the checkdam has to carried, often long distances, by means of diesel pumps, which has its associated costs.

It is therefore clear that the "hapa"s are at a definite advantageous position in cost benifit ratio in comparison to the other measure of water conservation.