Atal Bhujal Yojana: bridging ambition with reality. rethinking community engagement in the Atal Bhujal Yojana

As Amol Singh Yadav, a folk artist hailing from Dasania village in the Bundelkhand region of Madhya Pradesh, stood up to sing his song about the Atal Bhujal Yojana (ABY), one could imagine how ambitious and potentially transformative the ABY scheme is for the management of groundwater at the community level.

As he sang, his lyrics referenced diminishing community groundwater resources and encouraged his community, whom he fondly referred to as friends, to unite in taking action as guardians of this vital resource. Most government schemes either involve the government setting up incentives and expecting changes in human behavior or directly providing social benefits to farmers. ABY is somewhat unique in having incentives and direct benefits in its design, but it centres on groundwater as a common-pool resource, the management of which is a community responsibility. The state’s role is viewed as facilitating community capacity building and providing necessary instruments and logistics for effective groundwater management.