CCI, ICRISAT, Coca Cola foundation development schemes

Hyderabad, Apr 4: International Crops Research Institute for Semi-Arid Tropics (ICRISAT), Confederation of Indian Industry and Coca-Cola Foundation will collaborate for sustainable and equitable management of Rural Water Resources Infrastructure and Natural Resources Management (NRM) through 'watershed' interventions in Dungarpur district, Rajasthan and Tirunelveli district, Tamil Nadu.

The aim was to improve the livelihood of the poor and marginal farmers in the project villages and evolve a strategy for rapid scale-up so that optimum scale needed for translating development interventions to significant enhancements of land&water use, productivity, agri-production and rural incomes was achieved.

The collaboration was expected to lead to an MoU between ICRISAT and CII, which would provide a framework for cooperation on NRM and related activities in rainfed areas, a press release yesterday said.

ICRISAT and CII would undertake action-research on rainfed agriculture, conjunctive use of water resources and development of policy and institutions for sustainable&equitable management of water and other natural resources. Training and capacity building of target communities would be an important part of this project.

Coca Cola Foundation's financial support would be used to implement 'watershed' interventions in Dungarpur and Tirunelveli.

Dr William Dar, Director General, ICRISAT, said the collaboration with CII and Coca Cola Foundation would strengthen the institute's partnership with the private sector to help farmers in the drylands.

UNI