Not AvailablePeople’s participation in watershed management programmes is an important strategy of government
of India for making watershed programmes successful. Participation of local beneficiary farmers is
mandatory in planning, implementation and maintenance of watershed development projects as per common
guidelines issued by Ministry of Agriculture, Government of India. National Bank for Agriculture and Rural
Development (NABARD) has launched holistic watershed development programmes on 2nd October, 2006
to help farmers in the six distressed districts of Vidarbha region of Maharashtra in India. Therefore, there is a
need to know the level of participation by the local people in government sponsored watershed management
programmes. The study was conducted during 2011 – 2012 in this Vidarbha region of Maharashtra to
measure the extent of people’s participation in NABARD Supported Holistic Watershed Development
Programme (NSHWDP). In this paper a detailed structured three-point-continuum schedule was developed
by the investigators regarding various aspects of participation by local people in soil and water conservation
for watershed management programme. People’s Participation Index (PPI) was also designed to compute
the extent of people’s participation. Data for this study was gathered through personal interviews from
farmers of six selected districts in Vidarbha region of Maharashtra. Findings of this study indicated that the
extent of people’s participation in planning was 63.7 per cent, in implementation was 57.7 per cent and in
maintenance was 75.1 per cent. It shows that the extent of people’s participation in NSHWDP in the six
distressed districts of Vidarbha region of Maharashtra was moderate during watershed programme planning
and implementation phases, whereas, high level of participation was exhibited during maintenance phase.Not Availabl