Intra-regional Development Disparities: Virtual Regions Strategy for Development of Tribal Communities and Water-stressed Regions in Maharashtra, Andhra Pradesh and Telangana

The long persistence of evident economic divergences between regions often results in resentment and political discord among the people of the perceived ‘backwardness’ of the areas and the more economically advanced and prosperous areas. There are certain facets of natural resource endowments in which a political–administrative unit such as a district does not make much economic logic. Time has come to adopt new strategies that attempt to transcend the district boundaries for the planning and implementation of development programmes. In spite of the government’s efforts over several decades, it is observed that the economic disparities between regions continue to be wide. Adopting a ‘backward region’ instead of a ‘district’ to plan schemes for the development of an entire ‘backward region’ may cover more than one district. In this article, the possibility of a regional approach to planning the development of the clearly identifiable tribal areas and of the water-stressed areas is examined for three neighbouring states in India, namely Maharashtra, Andhra Pradesh and Telangana. As per population share of 9% in the state of Maharashtra, the tribal sector gets 9% of the total state budget annually. For a better planning process, systematic convergence and integrated planning would further help. There is still a long way to go for the tribal population to make informed decisions on development issues, which affect their lives. Contextualised education can serve as an effective tool for empowerment in the long run. In the state of Andhra Pradesh, the Integrated Tribal Development Agencies (ITDAs) prepare their development plans for their own district jurisdictions and not for the contiguous tribal region cutting across several districts, and also cutting across the state borders. Development projects like irrigation check dams were generally not taken up with the involvement of the local tribals. Strategies for the development of agriculture and horticulture in these areas were successful when the traditional agriculture practices of the tribal communities were taken into account. Problems faced by the tribal communities include inadequate education facilities, lack of easy access to modern medical facilities, inadequate connectivity and non-availability of a reliable supply of electricity. In the state of Maharashtra creation of a mosaic of different sizes of Water Resource Department (WRD) structures was the result of inevitable response to the dynamics of changes in the water demand pattern and has improved the water stress situation. Inter-basin projects for lifting and transferring surplus water have been investigated but have not been taken up so far due to prohibitive cost. To address regional imbalance in water resource development, physical and financial terms were estimated, duly stating mechanism for redressal of the imbalance, but in practice, the implementation did not materialise. Big hydroelectric power projects were built diverting river water, but now, people are arguing that there could be a substitute to electricity but not to water. Increase in competing water demands for non-irrigation purposes and non-treatment of urban effluents gave rise to urban–rural conflicts, and water stress had been created in an area where there were none earlier. This underlines the dynamics of changes in the demands for water and consequent water stress patterns. Pace of groundwater (GW) exploitation increased rapidly and resulted in overexploitation of some watersheds, especially in the drought-prone zone. Water stress situation could be mitigated to a certain extent in such watersheds by augmenting GW by means of watershed development works. A large part of the state of Telangana lies on the elevated Deccan Plateau and faces water stress. This region is contiguous with the water-stressed region of Marathwada in Maharashtra. The Telangana government took up on priority a programme to revive the old tanks, which had been constructed in the past in the Deccan Plateau region and which had fallen into disuse. If the ambitious lift irrigation project is completed without further delay, it will be a significant achievement. From this study of the tribal development strategies adopted in Maharashtra and Andhra Pradesh, it is observed that several gaps and challenges continue to persist, implying revisiting the fundamental approaches and planning processes. A more focused approach of ‘virtual region as planning unit’ would be useful to take the aspects into consideration related to geographical, cultural and developmental heterogeneity vis-à -vis tribal population. The idea of virtual region planning can be implemented through building on the unique strengths of tribal communities, approach of integrated planning with convergence, considering intra-tribe heterogeneity, leveraging the existing administrative and operational mechanisms, capacitate community to take informed decision regarding mainstreaming instead of forcing blanket ‘developmental measures’, etc. As regards the development of water-stressed regions, this study deals with the water-stressed regions of Maharashtra and Telangana. It is observed that the concept of ‘water stress’ in any region changes with the demand–supply situation, and it is a dynamic process. Optimum development of water resources in a river basin and a reasonably good dispersal of irrigation and other benefits in the entire basin need to be planned on social equity considerations. Lift irrigation schemes seem to be the only possibility of alleviating the water stress in water-stressed areas, which are elevated as in the case of the Deccan Plateau and do not have the benefit of irrigation water by gravity canals. The cost of setting up and maintaining such lift irrigation schemes, problems of sand siltation in the pipes and prohibitive cost of uninterrupted electricity supply required for pumping are some of the major problems faced by this option for meeting the needs of the water-stressed regions of Maharashtra and Telangana. JEL Classification: D63, D7, D81, D83, H11, I38, Q25, Q28