Andhra Pradesh Farmers Managed Ground Water Systems Project1
Andhra Pradesh has piloted an alternate approach to demand side management of ground water
through community mobilization and action under the APWELLS and AP APFAMGS projects. The
Indo‐Dutch APWELL Project was implemented in seven drought prone districts of Andhra Pradesh
from 1995 to 2003. The Andhra Pradesh State Irrigation Development Corporation (APSIDC) was the
main implementing agency. In the last year of implementation the project was transferred to the
Panchayat Raj and Rural Development Department for possible upscaling. NGOs were involved in
community mobilizing and capacity building.
The long‐term objective of the project was to improve the living conditions of small and marginal
farmers, through sustainable and environmentally sound interventions. The project also strove to
make women farmers as equal partners with male farmers in agriculture and related activities. The
immediate objective of the project was to provide ground water irrigation facilities for small and
marginal men and women farmers. The farmers formed Water User Groups (WUGs) for
construction, operation, and maintenance of the ground water irrigation systems. Clusters of WUGs
formed Borewell User Associations (BUAs) which were legally registered, for training, inputs, agro‐
processing, and generation of profit. Important components of the project were ground water
resources development where feasible, land‐and‐water management by the users, extension and
training, activities for gender integration and institutional development, environment management,
and monitoring and evaluation.
The achievements of the APWELL Project were that it operated in 370 villages in 7 districts, bringing
irrigation facilities to about 35,000 acres of land belonging to about 14,500 small and marginal
farmer families. They were formed into 3,450 Water User Groups (WUGs) and given trained in
operation and maintenance of bore wells as well as group management and water sharing. Extensive
capacity building programs were conducted in sustainable agriculture including INM and IPM. The
women farmers were organized into 600 SHGs active in thrift and savings and income generation
activities. Finally, the WUGs were formed into 250 BUAs for organizing common activities of WUGs.
In later assessments, it has been observed that most of these WUGs and BUAs had been converted
into Rythu Mitra Groups (RMGs).
APWELL had designed, planned and implemented Participatory Hydrological Monitoring (PHM) and
allied activities among its WUGs aiming at demand side management of ground water systems
through Participatory Ground water Management (PGM). As a first step, it started not only involving
non‐APWELL farmers in a target village, but also entered into new villages where the project had not
developed ground water irrigation systems. The basin level initiative at the Upper Gundlakamma
Basin, Prakasam District, was based on the experience from the PHM pilot. Gundlakamma initiative
in itself was to be a pilot on a basin scale to gain in‐depth knowledge on promoting people managed
ground water system. It was recognised that PHM was very important for a dry land farmer in
resource poor regions of AP because a farmer there not only spent more money on construction and
annual maintenance but might even end up with a defunct well. The main lessons from the APWELL
Project may be summarized as follows:

Access to water by small and marginal farmers improves their productivity and they rise
above poverty line

Small and marginal land holdings (as small as one acre) can become productive with
availability of water and proper inputs
1 Source: AFPRO, 2006. A Systematic Assessment of Community Based Ground water Management Experiences in
Andhra Pradesh. Hyderabad, Action for Food Production & APFMAGS Project Profile
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
Participatory ground water management is a viable concept if introduced in conjunction
with ground water development, agricultural production, institutional development and
capacity building of farming communities

All stakeholders and water users need to be involved in participatory ground water
management
After the completion of the APWELL project in March 2003, the PHM pilot was developed into a new
project, i.e., Andhra Pradesh Farmers Managed Ground water Systems project (APFAMGS), which is
being implemented in the same districts with the selection of villages based on ground water
hydrological unit. The APFAMGS project started in 2003 August, with the assistance of The Royal
Netherlands Embassy and was later taken over by FAO in July 2004.
Hence, the Andhra Pradesh Farmer Managed Ground water Systems (APFAMGS) Project is a logical
extension of APWELL project. While the latter was centred on the creation of water facilities for poor
and marginal farmers, APFAMGS’ focus is on developing capacity of ground water users in managing
their resource in a commonly sustainable way for crop production. The experience of ground water
management and PHM gained through APWELL fully informs the conceptual design and
implementation set‐up of APFAMGS and is the basis upon which the new project is built.
The specific objectives of the project are:
 Create a band of skilled human resources to take up task of ground water management
 Make farmers vigilant to ground water dynamics and consequences of over exploitation
 Share concerns of farmers affected by ground water over exploitation and ensure appropriate
remedial action
 Extend popular concept of participatory management of water resources to ground water
users
 Institutionalize community management of ground water for dealing with issues related to
sustainable ground water management
 Facilitate formation of Ground water Management Committees (GMC) made up of well
owners to monitor ground water levels, rainfall and discharge.
 Promote Crop Water Budgeting (CWB) as a tool to empower farmers for deciding appropriate
crop system matching the available ground water.
 Adopt Farmers Field School (FFS) approach for promoting ecofriendly farming system
 Empower community to take up appropriate initiatives in ground water recharge measures.
The project is being implemented in 650 villages in seven drought prone districts of Mahabubnagar,
Kurnool, Nalgonda, Prakasam, Kadapa, Anantapur and Chittoor. In each district, a few streams are
selected based on technical criteria. Each stream basin is being considered as a hydrological unit and
each unit covers minimum of one village and a maximum of 20 villages. The project is being
implemented in 62 hydrological units.
The major Activities of the project are:
1. Establishing hydrological monitoring networks
 Rain gauge stations
 Observation wells – Monitoring water levels and discharge
2. Capacity building of farmers
 Data collection,
 data recording
 crop water budgeting
3. Efficient water management practices
 Use of water saving devices
 Switching over to low water consumption crops
 Practicing water efficient irrigation systems.
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4. Artificial recharge measures
 Construction of check dams, Drilling of injection wells
 Desilting of tanks
5. Enhanced Agricultural production
 Farmers field schools(FFS)
 Participatory technology development (PTD)
 Farmer Training Teams (FTT)
 Training cum production centres
 On farm demonstrations
o Soil and water conservation
o Nutrient management
o IPM
o Alternate land use system
o Farmer Scientist workshops
6. Gender integration
 Gender assessment study
 Mainstreaming Gender
 Awareness on gainful employment
7. Community based Institutions ‐ Ground water management committees (GMCs)
 Habitation level
 Hydrological Unit level
 NGO level networking.
 State level networking
8. Linkages
 Ground water & Agriculture Departments.
 Scientific Research Organisations
The institutional design of the project is rather complex. One nodal NGO – BIRDS – has signed the
agreement with FAO as the executing/implementing agency with another eight partner NGOs also
participating in implementation. The project receives continuous technical support from a Technical
Support Team, World Education and others. The modality of implementation of the project however
allows flexibility of execution with FAO playing a guidance and financial oversight role.
The project promotes participatory ground water management through the platform of Farmer
Water Schools that facilitates experiential learning of different cultivation techniques and cropping
patterns linked to the use of ground water resource. This is achieved through intensive capacity
building and progressive development of the Farmer Field School (FFS) concept into the Farmer
Water School (FWS). A key element in the FWS is the crop water budget session at the start of the
Rabi season, particularly as a decision‐making tool for farm families to adopt alternative agricultural
practices, suiting the availability of ground water. Participatory Ground water Management is
addressed by the following steps:

Participatory Hydrological Monitoring – the farmers are equipped to record the ground
water level and rainfall data, analyze the seasonal and daily fluctuations for understanding
the ground water behaviour

Environmental Viability Assessment – the farmers are equipped to assess the likely recharge
of ground water on the basis of topography and land use in the given unit. The farmers are
also equipped with the skill to assess the quantity of ground water being utilized as per
existing cropping pattern and other usage. A water balance is arrived at to understand
whether the recharge is less, more or equivalent to usage. This highlights the environmental
viability and sustainability of current practices and assists in identification suitable practices
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
Crop Water Budgeting – Once the farmers are able to assess ground water availability and
seasonal water balance, they are provided with information to identify the crops according
to water availability. Thus the crops is identified as per water budget
The project also works on the supply side management of ground water resource through artificial
ground water recharge structures. Though limited in scope it has been in some ways successful in
improving ground water availability in the project area.
APFAMGS Project has already exceeded its original targets of creating a band of 3000 men and
women farmers to understand ground water systems and 6500 farm families enabled for adoption
of alternative agricultural practices suiting the availability of ground water. The specific
achievements of the project are:

About 28,000 men and women farmers having been trained through FFS‐FMGS on
alternative agricultural practices are in a position to understand ground water systems
 10,340 farm families enabled for adoption of alternative agricultural practices suiting the
availability of ground water (against a target of 6,500)
 559 community based institutions established for alternative management of ground water
resources with equal representation and participation of women and men covering 640
habitations
 Several water use efficiency initiatives like mulching, bunding, improved irrigation methods,
large scale promotion of water saving devices etc. have been taken up by farmers
A systematic study of the project was conducted by AFPRO, Hyderabad during the second half of
2006. Data was collected from 30 villages reflecting a range of aquifer types and socio‐agronomic
conditions in the project area and villages without the project. The sample included 8 APWELL
villages, 6 APWELL villages where APFAMGS has continued its activities, 10 villages which were
newly selected for APFAMGS activities, one CWS village (CWS is implementing a community ground
water management project in this village independent of APFAMGS) and 5 villages with substantial
ground water use but not under any ground water management project. Information from 15
ground water users from each village was obtained to quantify important socio‐economic
parameters for the assessment of effectiveness of interventions. The study team also interviewed
farmers as well as officials of various relevant departments of the GoAP. Data collected related to
communication and awareness strategy, community participation, ground water management by
community, watershed implementation, agriculture among others.
The study findings showed that APFAMGS project has been successful in meeting its challenges and
achieving its expected results (AFPRO, 2006). Farmers understand the seasonal occurrence and
distribution of ground water in their habitations and in their hydrological units as a whole and are
able to estimate seasonal recharge, draft and balance. Farmers are capable of collecting and
recording rainfall and associated ground water data. They have mastered the concept of ground
water as a shared resource and are willing to manage it for the collective benefit. This has been
achieved through a strong focus and investment on capacity building and through the process of
demystification of concerned science without compromising on its basic scientific principles, which
has created a strong empowering effect on the beneficiaries.
An independent evaluation of the APFAMGS carried out by the GW‐MATE, World Bank in 2009
shows significant successes by the project. The study was carried out using the APFAMGS Project
database (which exhaustively covers the project area), remote sensing information and a farmer
survey commissioned from the University of Hyderabad. The findings of the study are (Garduo, H. et
al. 2009. 12‐13):

In a majority of the project areas, the interventions have succeeded in beginning to build a
link between water availability and water use for agriculture – in the years when water
availability is low at the beginning of the rabi season (either due to low rainfall and
consequently low recharge, or due to high ground water abstractions in the kharif season
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decreasing availability for the rabi season), ground water use has been reduced counter to
the normal behaviour whereby water availability in the aquifers is not a factor influencing
ground water use, and aquifer depletion often worsens in drier years – and this path‐
breaking achievement can be understood in terms of the impact of ground water availability
information on farmer decision making

The reductions in water use in these areas are achieved by a combination of crop
diversification and water‐saving irrigation methods – in effect six of the eight hydrological
units sampled reported a reduction in the area under high‐water‐use crops, and the
cumulative reduction of 43% during 2 years in rabi paddy area contrasts with the total area
under rabi paddy in Andhra Pradesh which increased 5%
Figure 1: Groundwater Pumping Pattern

The
remote
sensing analysis for
one selected HU
showed that area
under high water
use crops (>1000
mm) decreased by
almost 11% from
2004‐05 to 2007‐
08, whereas area
under the low
water use crops
(<375
mm)
increased by roughly the same amount

In terms of cumulative water abstractions, 42% of the HUs have consistently reduced the
Rabi draft over the three years of project operation, while 51% have reduced the draft
intermittently, and only 7% have witnessed an increase in ground water draft during this
period. The figure below shows the behaviour of HUs where ground water draft has
decreased.
Figure 2: Hydrological Units with Decrease in Ground Water Draft
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
This impact is unprecedented, in terms of reductions actually being realized in ground water
draft, and in terms of the geographic extent of this impact, covering dozens of aquifers and
hundreds of communities – while these results are preliminary and pose a number of
questions on how exactly this impact has been achieved, they do indicate that APFAMGS
may be the first example globally of large‐scale success in ground water management by
communities

Moreover, project area farmers have not sacrificed profitability to reduce water use; on the
contrary they have consistently improved their profitability with the Net Value of Outputs
per ha nearly doubling during the project period compared to inferior and much more
erratic results in similar non‐project areas
APFAMGS project has hence done a commendable job in demystifying the science of ground water
dynamics for the farmers and trained them in monitoring ground water status in their villages for
collective decision making on its use. This has empowered the farmers and provided sustainability
and stability to their ground water based livelihoods. However, the project approach is very
intensive with need for continuous and sustained training and capacity building of the farmers. It
requires a dedicated team of trained professionals to support implementation on a regular basis.
Although the information about the project, its achievements and learning are quite well
documented and disseminated no attempt has been made to replicate it in any other state of the
country. Neither has the project been owned up by the concerned governments in Andhra Pradesh –
Rural, Agriculture and Ground water Departments or scaled up to cover mare ground water
communities2. This has led some critics of the project to argue that while it may have succeeded in
parts of Andhra Pradesh the project methodology is too abstract and complex to replicate
elsewhere.
2
The PGM approach has been adopted in the World Bank assisted Andhra Pradesh Community Based Tank
Management Project for implementation in the PIM context. However, even in this project the number of WUAs
covered under PGM is only about a 1000.
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