Water management in water scarce land: Peh Village

Mingyashin Shaiza *

I visited Peh village during Christmas last year. Peh has a beautiful tradition of celebrating Christmas with different games, competitions, and bonfire social gatherings at night. One main attraction of Peh village is the topographical rocks and a gigantic, old tree standing right in the middle of the village. They are also very famous for their traditional way of cooking pork, which you can get a taste of only during festive seasons like Christmas and Luira (the seed sowing festival).

Peh village is located just about 40 km north of Ukhrul Headquarters. It is comparatively much warmer and pleasant during winter compared to Ukhrul's main town. The one thing that makes it hard for people to live in the village is water. Water has a higher value than fruits and vegetables in the village. During the dry season, the villagers have a meager amount of water in the ponds.

The forest used to be so dense and dark that when women went out to fetch water, men had to accompany them to guard and protect them from wild animals and intruders, said Ani Shimrah, an old lady in the village.

As development came, roads were constructed, and forests fell; some of the ponds are now easily accessible by foot and vehicle. We are not sure if it is because of the rise in consumption and usage of water or due to deforestation, but the colour of the water has turned milky. It used to be so clear that the water looked blue.

"We even used the reflection as a mirror," she added with a smile and a dreamy look on her face.

AS Rashing is in his 50s and was born and brought up in Peh Village. He had also witnessed life when thick forest covered the village and saw it all go in the blink of an eye due to wildfire. He said water scarcity has been a part of their daily struggle even though they are surrounded by rivers on all sides.

Peh is surrounded by four rivers: Sumukvui Ngayin Kong on the north, Wuirei Kong in the east, Rangazak Kong in the south, and Masha Kong in the west.

He also mentioned that there is no water supply in Peh village. The village depends on community ponds and spring water for their livelihood, which are located about half a mile to three miles from their home.

There are five main sources of water in Peh: Ngayirui, Paknakoruiku, Vanvaorui, Ngavethangrui, and Shangarvuiru are natural spring water ponds. Since time immemorial, these ponds have been the main sources of water for the villagers.

An NGO called Volunteer for Village Development (VVD) came to our village and told us about collecting rainwater from the rooftop. As the thatched roof transformed into a tin roof house, the practice of roof-top rainwater harvesting began in the mid-1990s. I was among the first to construct a tank (a water reservoir) and collect rainwater from the roof. My friends and others started to construct tanks only after they realized how useful they were.

Collecting rainwater was not a practice in our village, and our grandfather and grandmother never thought of it. Also, the water that dripped from the thatched roof was said to be non consumable. It was only after the tin roof came that we started to collect water in a drum or big basin.

I remember my mother storing water in carved-out wooden storage made from tree trunks. It was the only water storage for us. I recalled the wooden storage shed covered in green slime. Now we have an iron drum and a big basin, and most households have started to construct tanks in their houses to collect rainwater.

According to the Central Ground Water Board of the North Eastern Region, Ministry of Water Resources, Guwahati, Spring water is one of the main sources of water supply for the population of Ukhrul district, where ponds are the most prevalent traditional water harvesting structures in the area. Hence, even today, a large majority of the population depend on ponds to meet their water requirements.

A study done by the Manipur Science and Technology Council says that Manipur State (with its 22,327 square kilometers of geographical area) is situated in the north-eastern corner of the country, comprising 90% of the total geographical area by hills and the rest (10%) by plains. The Valley of Manipur lies at an altitude of about 780 m above mean sea level and occupies the central portion of the Dtate. It gradually slopes from north to south.

The State falls in one of the rain-fed regions of the country and receives an appreciable amount of unevenly distributed precipitation throughout the year, with peak rainfall during the monsoon period. However, because of the hilly topography, water no longer remains after rainfall.

The study also shows that in the hills, women have to go a long distance to fetch some water from the rivers, streams, springs, etc. Being a hilly region, underground water exploration and exploitation do not seem feasible (especially in the hill districts), and rooftop rainwater harvesting is found to be the appropriate system to be adopted to augment the shortage of water supply systems for the people.

Rooftop rainwater harvesting is the technique through which rainwater is captured from the roof catchment and stored in reservoirs. The objective of rainwater harvesting is to make water available for future use and meet household needs.

Among others, some of the advantages of rainwater harvesting might be as follows:
It provides self-sufficiency for water supply.
It provides high-quality water with low minerals.
The system is less expensive and can be adopted by individuals.
In the hilly terrain, rainwater harvesting is preferred for adoption.

The region experiences a subtropical to temperate climate with appreciable special variations showing highly contrasting meteorological conditions. The annual precipitation varies from 2194 mm to 4516 mm as recorded in the western region, from 2943 mm in the south, and from 1785 mm in the central part of the State. The rainfall is unevenly distributed throughout the year.

Out of the existing houses in the State, about 50% of the houses, mostly in the rural areas, consist of galvanized corrugated iron slanted roof sheets, about 20% of the houses, mostly in the towns, are RCC buildings, and the remaining are thatched roofed houses in the village areas. Most of the community halls, Churches, schools, temples, etc. have CGI roofs.

Rainwater harvesting or watershed management could be the best practice for a no-water-supply village such as Peh. Creating more awareness and taking up projects on rainwater harvesting and watershed management can help sustain the livelihood in the village. As the village is warm, fruits such as gooseberry, lemon, pomegranate, plum, wild apple, peach, papaya, and vegetables such as soybeans, stinky beans, cabbage, lettuce, banana stems, and more thrive in the village.


This research was conducted and published under the fellowship of the Directorate of Environment and Climate Change, Manipur