ISSN 2360-798X
Abstract
Accepted 4th April, 2020.
Rural tanks are an important and smallest water bodies constructed by our forefathers, for the purpose of irrigation, domestic use, fisheries, ground water recharge, and shelter for birds, social forestry, flood regulation and drought mitigation. In India, there exist 2, 08,000 rural tanks, among which, most of them are located in the southern parts of the country. Rural tanks have brought out the benefits to their dependents, who are the farmers, villagers for their farm and home based activities. Almost all the rural tanks have been reduced and decayed, due to various reasons of individual and community factors, such as severe encroachment, unauthorized cultivation, heavy silt, weed and improper maintenance as well as the natural calamities. This has been resulted into reduction of water storage capacity, insufficient water supply that leads to crop failure. There are wide relationship between the greenery and conservation of natural resources at coastal region and assistance from the rural tanks will enrich the sustainable rural development. At this juncture, the present paper is aimed to highlight the participatory management of the rural tanks and its role in the greening coastal region of Mandapam block, Ramanathapuram district, Tamilnadu. It is therefore concluded that rural tanks profusely delivers the benefits to the tank villages that leads to securing livelihoods of village mass in the coastal region.
Keywords: Rural Tanks- Participatory Management- Greening Coastal Region-Irrigation- Live stock Maintenance- Sustainable Rural Development