Atpadi s 48 clusters must form water-user associations and plan for sharing the resource equitably. The plan is to provide 5,000 m3 per family a year. The administration of the piped water system will be transferred to water-user associations. Every person with a gat (survey) number will become a member of the association. Since farmers need to manage this complex system, capacity building will be crucial to enable them to manage the waters in an informed manner.
Atpadi, once known as the ‘land of drought’, now has villages rich with fields of pomegranate, grapes, sugarcane, tomato and elephant grass, among other crops.