ABSTRACT
The dejected eyes of Kartar Chand Rana, 52, panned the breached check dam 1 in his village, Kuhan. As head of the Gram Vikas Samiti (a local committee), he had had to order the breaking of the embankment of the very dam that fed his 4 hectares until last year. It was the best thing to do under the circumstances. The dam had silted over and the only way to clear the reservoir was to break the wall and let the water wash all the mud. The immediate cause of the blockage: the dumping of debris from the construction of a Public Works Department (PWD) road that connected Kuhan to the highway. Kuhan had petitioned the PWD to pay for the reservoir's clean up, but to no avail. After many sombre discussions in the village square, the farmers took the tough decision to breach the dam wall in the pre-monsoon of 2007. Now they were collecting funds to install iron gates to plug the breach and prevent similar problems in the future.
