Improvement of water harvesting structures and changes noticed under integrated watershed management programme (IWMP): Jammu and Kashmir

The present study was conducted in the three districts of North Kashmir namely Baramulla, Kupwara and Bandipora of Jammu and Kashmir, selected purposively on the basis of maximum projects under IWMP. From the selected 8 projects namely IWMP-I Rafiabad-A (n=34), IWMP-IX Rohama-B (n=53), IWMP-XI Pattan (n=79) and IWMP-XI Wagoora (n=61) from Baramulla, IWMP-IV Kalaroos (n=35), IWMP-V Kalaroos (n=34) and IWMP-IX Rajwar(n=17) from Kupwara and IWMP-II Malangam-I(n=37) from Bandipora with total number of 350(N), beneficiaries were selected randomly through proportionate sampling technique. The results depicted that majority of the beneficiaries (39.7%) and (41.9%) had found “satisfactory” improvement in quality of water harvesting structures through leakage plastering in the four and three selected watershed projects of district Baramulla and Kupwara respectively. Whereas, 48.6 per cent of beneficiaries had found “good” improvement in quality of water harvesting structures through leakage plastering from the selected one watershed project of district Bandipora. It was also recorded that majority of the beneficiaries (40.2%), (44.2%) had found “satisfactory” improvement in quality of water harvesting structures through decreasing the siltation in the four selected watershed projects of district Baramulla and Kupwara respectively. Meanwhile, 44.6 per cent beneficiaries had found “good” improvement in quality of water harvesting structures through decreasing the siltation from the selected one watershed project from district Bandipora.