Impact of irrigation project on tribal settlements: jobat irrigation project, District Dhar Madhya Pradesh

Abstract

Irrigation projects all over Madhya Pradesh have triggered the pace of development especially in rural areas. A total of 464 projects comprising of major, medium and minor scale irrigation projects were planned. Because of the presence of huge percentage of tribal population in the state, as much as 80 percent of the beneficiaries in many of the projects belong to tribal communities. As a part of this intervention irrigation projects have come up in tribal dominated district of Dhar (Madhya Pradesh)One of them is the Shahid Chandra Shekhar Azad (Jobat) irrigation project covering 24 villages with an estimated target to strengthen the livelihoods of tribal people. It is one of the 29 major projects identified in the Narmada Master Plan for implementation. The project site is near village Waskel and is about 24 km from Kukshi. The project provides irrigation in an area of 9848 hectares of 24 villages of Kukshi Tehsil and Kukshi Vidhan Sabha area of Dhar district.