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Jal- Chitra : An Introduction
Who Will Use Jal- Chitra ?
Since the aim of Jal- Chitra is to provide a tool for the village community, it naturally raises question how will the various rural communities access Jal- Chitra? The tentative answer that has emerged from the testing of Jal- Chitra at the Barefoot College, Tilonia and with Mazdoor Kisan Shakti Sangathan (MKSS), Devdungari is that two kinds of institutions have to be involved. Firstly, to involve voluntary organisations those are working directly with the village Panchayats and have an access to a computer. Their role is that of an intermediary and one that will change once Panchayats themselves have an access to computers. Secondly, and perhaps most importantly the village school has to be involved in the use of Jal- Chitra. The minimum information that Jal- Chitra needs for it to be useful is the monthly record of the amount of water available from various sources. This requires finding the discharge rate of handpumps, the area of the water cover in the rainwater reservoir, the average depth of water in the reservoirs. For more advance use it also requires maintaining meteorological records like the rainfall. These records can be kept by the school children, and the process of keeping these records can become a part of a child's education. The involvement of the village school in the use of Jal- Chitra not only allows the school children to participate in the development of the village but also gives them an opportunity to apply some of the abstract concepts from elementary mathematics to real life situation. This has the potentiality of making the learning of science and mathematics more interesting, relevant and rooted in the child's own environment. Testing of Jal- Chitra Since January 2002 Jal- Chitra is being used in more than a dozen villages of Rajasthan. The use of Jal- Chitra in these villages roughly follows the following steps.
For the testing of Jal- Chitra in Silora Panchayat, the collection of the monthly information is the responsibility of the workers of the Barefoot College Tilonia. Ms Lalita, who had formal education only till lower high school and does not know any English, records the collected information in Jal- Chitra . Some of the reports generated during the course of this testing are included below as computer screen shots. The testing of Jal- Chitra in Todgadh is of particular importance as it is being done in a manner close to its envisioned mode of usage. The high school students collect the monthly data of the amount of water available from various water sources and Vivek Ramkumar, a member of MKSS, then enters the information into Jal- Chitra . Testing of Jal- Chitra in Todgadh also involves Tejaram who is the head of the Todgadh Panchayat. It is hoped that his involvement will teach us how best to incorporate Jal- Chitra into village Panchayats .  Figure 4 Schematic Community Water Resource Map of Kacharia Drawn by Ms. Lalita of the Barefoot College Tilonia  Figure 5 Monthly Water Budget for the Village of Kacharia for the month of May  Figure 6 Report generated by Jal- Chitra showing the water sources that require maintenance in the village of Kacharia Future Outlook Even the limited use of Jal- Chitra has validated the basic premise behind its development. For example, the records of handpumps maintenance and their maintenance log are vividly bringing out the water situation in various villages. Once these reports are shared with whole of the village through Gram- Sabha then, hopefully, one will be able to see the use of Jal- Chitra as an advocacy tool. There are still many unanswered questions whose answers will emerge only after a more extended use of Jal- Chitra. One particularly important issue that has to be understood is how should Panchayat use the monthly water budget, which is generated by Jal- Chitra, in its planning and water management exercise. The development and the use of Jal- Chitra have suggested two related projects. One there is a need for documenting the experience of developing, testing and of using Jal- Chitra so that the lessons learned from this work can be carefully analysed and shared with the wider community. Secondly, based on the testing of Jal- Chitra and through a continuous dialog with the members of various Panchayats where Jal- Chitra is being used, the development of a new version of Jal- Chitra has to be started. It is hoped that the future development of Jal- Chitra will take place with in the paradigm of open and free software, so that users, software developers, and planners from all over the world can collaborate in its continuos development. Obtaining Jal- Chitra Jal- Chitra is free software meant for Panchayats and voluntary organisations working with them. To obtain a copy of Jal- Chitra please contact The Ajit Foundation. Acknowledgements Jal- Chitra is a result of collaboration between the Ajit Foundation, Jaipur and the Barefoot College, Tilonia. I am grateful to my colleagues at both these organisations. At the Barefoot College, Tilonia, I am particularly grateful to Ms Lalita for her insistence on the Hindi version of Jal- Chitra and for her diligent testing of it. I am also grateful to Vivek Ramkumar of MKSS and to the students of Todgadh High School who have been involved in the testing of Jal- Chitra in Todgadh. My views on the use of information technology for rural development have been greatly influenced by my conversations with Bunker Roy, Dr. Kamla Chowdhary, Laxman Singh, Prof. Narendra Singhi, Nikhil Dey, and Prof. Vijay Vyas, I would like to thank them all for sharing their insights with me.
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