Program Summary

Arghyam has decided to partner with PRASARI in the coming financial year for their scaled interventions for building capacities of frontline workers across three different projects in West Bengal.

About the Programme

The engagement will cover three programs that work on springshed management, watershed management and well rejuvenation. The issue in most of the target areas is reducing groundwater levels, reducing spring discharge, poor maintenance of dug-wells and other traditional water structures leading to poor access to water and water scarcity.

• Jharnadhara Springshed Management program

Jharnadhara is a pioneering Springshed program designed at scale which covers 616 springs across 4 districts. It is a collaboration of BRLF and Arghyam to support the soft components of the program while the implementation money is leveraged from MG-NREGA, Department of Rural Development, Government of West Bengal.

The new engagement will target all 30 springs of Gorubathan block of Darjeeling district with the reimagined capacity building model.

• Usharmukti Watershed Management program

Usharmukti is the first mega watershed project supported by BRLF and implemented by CSO partners. The project covers 55 blocks across 6 districts. It is a collaboration of BRLF and a few other funders like Ford Foundation, Wabag Foundation etc. to support the soft components of the program while the implementation money is leveraged from MG-NREGA, Department of Rural Development, Government of West Bengal.

30 micro watersheds of Rajnagar block (intensive block) and watersheds of non-intensive block if possible, of Birbhum district will pilot the digital capacity building model.

• Well Rejuvenation program

The program is about piloting a well rejuvenation protocol on 80-100 water structures across two districts of West Bengal. Funded by Azim Premji Philanthropic Initiatives (APPI), this project too seeks to leverage MGNREGA funds.

The new engagement will cover five intensive gram panchayats of the project in Matiali & Nagrakata blocks in the Jalpaiguri district.

The reimagined capacity building efforts are likely to touch approximately 18000 HHs. As the scale of operations is increasing, BRLF in collaboration with Arghyam would deploy the Capacity Building Solutions in order to improve the efficacy of their efforts across different phases of the project lifecycle.