Vidarbha is placed in the eastern part of Maharashtra State & is the backward Region of the State. Agriculture is the mainstay of more than 80% of people in the Region. Due to erratic rainfall and lack of scientific management of soil, the top fertile soil is eroded & hence the crop productivity has reduced a lot. Entire Vidarbha is a rain-fed area and only one crop within a year is feasible that too with very low yield. Vidarbha is known as a suicidal prone area and thousands of farmers committed suicide due to non-economic agriculture patterns that evolved over a period of years. Among many other reasons non-availability of irrigation, the facility is the main forcing farmers only for single cropping.

The proposed project area is in Ramtek block of Nagpur district. It is towards 45 km north of Nagpur with a hilly area located at 21.4°N 79.33°E. Ramtek has a tropical climate. The average rainfall in Ramtek is 1124 mm and the average temperature of Ramtek is 26.7 C which goes high to 45C in summer. The total population of Ramtek taluka is 1,51,626 living in 31943 households spread across 133 villages and 46-gram panchayats. The proposed project area is 5 villages on both sides of Ramtek-Tumsar Road. Around 85% of households possess agricultural land and almost all of them are small and marginal farmers, growing a single crop in a year due to no irrigation facility. YRA has been working in this area for the last five years in the area of gender justice, youth development, SHG promotion, and diversion-based irrigation. Under the DBS project, YRA covered 769 acres of land of 213 farmers in this area and they could get more yield as compared to earlier. By experiencing the benefits people in the surrounding villages are coming forward and demanding such units in their villages. They are also ready to contribute as per their capacities. YRA has credibility and strong existence in this area. This intervention will assure the livelihood of 260 farming families directly.Under this program, we are going to cover all 260 farmer beneficiaries who have been benefitted from the 21 PHADs constructed so far in the same cluster.

The direct beneficiaries would be 46 farmers under PHAD irrigation, 130 farmers (50% out of the total number) through developing Gotery and Poultry units and 260 farmers will be benefitted by adopting soil management practices. 260 family members and approximately 1750 households with a population of 8500 from 5 villages will be indirect beneficiaries as stakeholders.