NREGA

SAMUHA believes NREGA is the single most important entitlement that rural Indians enjoy today.

Its the only public Resource that is available to the Indian Villager on demand! It's akin to having a Public resources tap in your village and under your control.

While these are flights of fancy, 100 villagers can demand 100 days of work at Rs 205(the legal wage in Karnataka at present). That's Rs 20,50,000 per annum that this village can plan for in advance. and every year that they are willing to work.

SAMUHA advocates that atleast 60% of this money be used for NRM (natural resources management). and specifically, that this be used for Trench-cum-Bunds of 20'x5'x2' dimensions. At an average 11 TcBs per acres, that's 62,000 litres of rainwater that can be harvested with each rain threshold day. at even 20 such raindays per year, that's a cool 1.2 million litres harvested and converted into Sub-surface interflows or soil moisture. and each inch of silt that is deposited into these 11 TcBs means over 3 tons of top soil that can be harvested and returned to the soil.