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OVERVIEWMarch 22, 2010 - “We no longer worry about the rains. We now have the confidence to grow alternative crops even if the monsoon fails,” said Balaraju, a farmer in one of the most drought-prone and... Show More + economically vulnerable regions of Andhra Pradesh in southern India.Last year, when large parts of the state were facing the severest drought in 30 years, Balaraju’s lands were unaffected. This is because the villagers now share groundwater, a practice introduced by the World Bank’s pilot project - The Andhra Pradesh Drought Adaptation Initiative (APDAI). Before the project, only the richer farmers had access to groundwater because only they could afford to dig deep wells. The rest, including Balaraju, had to depend on the unreliable monsoon rains to irrigate their crops.GROUNDWATER SHARINGBut, convincing the richer farmers to share the water from their wells was not easy. However they agreed to do so because many of them too had fields that were far from their wells. If a pipeline was Show Less -
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