Rural roads as possible enablers to Water, Sustainability and Women empowerment: A Case Study of Indian State of Uttarakhand

Roads have a significant instrument of sustainable water management as they impact hydrology in a major way by affecting flow patterns, concentrating and accelerating runoffs, altering subsurface flow patterns, and altering flooding characteristics of an area. Therefore, in the times of shortage of water in many areas for drinking and agriculture, any sustainable water solution has to necessarily take roads into account.Rural roads in this context have been conceptualised as a possible resource in the overall scheme of water conservation and harvesting. There have been some excellent practices observed and documented in this regard in many parts of the world. The technology involved and practices in this context are easily adaptable. Accordingly given the fact of ambitious rural roads program in the country under Prime Minister Gram SadakYojana (PMGSY) and community contracting in their maintenance is increasingly coming in vogue. This coupled with traditional systems of community management of water resources coupled with traditional knowledge surrounding these in Uttarakhand, there is a good opportunity to think of rural roads and water conservation in an integral manner. This paper attempt to highlight some pointers in this direction.