A long journey
To really understand what the chauka system has done to the pastures of the village and its neighbouring areas, it must be kept in mind that the village was declared drought-prone in the 1970s. The pastures were degraded and barren. Livestock was starved for grass and fodder, and 40 per cent of the residents of Lapodia used to migrate to towns in search of livelihood. "You could see the village from as far as four km as there were no trees in sight,' recalls Singh.
In 1990, Singh mobilised the people of his village to form a gram sabha, an informal village assembly. This led to the creation of a voluntary organisation in the village, the Gram Vikas Nav Yuvak Mandal (gvnym). In 1994, work was initiated on 50 hectares of pastures to integrate the degraded land into a single protected unit. Singh and some village elders sat down to discuss the methodology and technology to revive the pastures. "Government departments were promoting construction of trenches and contour bunding. We had seen these, and we had concluded that these do not promote natural growth of grasses,' Singh observes. "Besides, there are a lot of useful varieties of grass that require shallow water. They cannot survive in deep waters,' he adds.
So, Singh suggested a system which, after suggestions and improvisations, was accepted as the chauka system. To build the dykes, the residents of Lapodia volunteered labour in the form of shramdaan, which implies contribution of labour for a good cause. Today, the ingenuity of Lapodia's residents and the four years of hard work they put in has borne fruit. Anyone can go and visit the pastures revived by them. Even in the summer months, when there is little grass, roots can be seen binding the soil. They wait for the first showers of the monsoon to spring to life.
"The dykes have been built keeping in mind the pathways that people and cattle use,' Singh explains, adding that the system is successful due to its adaptability. "There was no restriction on grazing cattle in the chauka initially as we were stressing the need to improve the soil conditions by impounding water. Now, the people of the village plan to restrict grazing in alternate chaukas,' he says.
"We went to officials of the state forest department to help us in promoting this system. To begin with, their response was negative. Later, they recognised that the system was very effective, but said that they would not be able to promote it in other villages till scientific institutions test it and approve of it,' Singh points out. While it has greatly improved socio-economic and ecological conditions in Lapodia, an effective method of regenerating pastures in semi-arid areas lies neglected due to the bureaucracy's unwillingness to recognise a good thing.
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