Addressing water woes improves the overall quality of life and household income. The latest example is the Climate Change Adaptation Project of HDFC Bank in Jafrabad, Maharashtra. As per a media release, the HDFC Bank project has helped over 5,400 households fight water shortage.

The project, which was launched in October 2020, covered 20 villages in Jafrabad. It was aimed at helping the local people cope with adverse climate change vulnerabilities such as drought, heat waves, and erratic and intense rainfall patterns. These climatic variations lead to land degradation, water scarcity, and low crop yield directly affecting the livelihood of residents, especially the farmers.

The impact

•  Average increase in water level by 4.88 ft.
• Increase in agriculture productivity of 7,380 acres of agricultural land
• Increase in the area under irrigation by 2,232 acres through an increase in water availability and water use efficiency
• 1,500 acres of area brought under diversified farming systems (horticulture, agroforestry, mixed cropping, etc.)
• 4,028 acres area protected from direct soil erosion
• 520 acres of area brought under horticulture
• Created 1,302 million litres of water harvesting potential
• Increase in average annual household income of 1,628 HHs by 25%

Ms. Nusrat Pathan, Head CSR, HDFC Bank, said, “Our interventions have successfully built the farmer’s response capacity to become climate and market-compatible, while also improving their farm incomes and maintaining the integrity of the ecology.” She further added that the projects also addressed many important issues like Runoff Harvesting, Groundwater recharge, Soil protection and moisture retention, Micro irrigation, and other climate-resilient agriculture practices.”

The project took a multi-dimension approach with work in area treatment, horticulture, water resource development, nala deepening, micro irrigation system, automatic weather station, and pest and nutrient management demonstrations. Cumulatively, the project has helped enhance the lives of nearly all 25,000 village dwellers, the bank said.