This video traces different aspects - technical, social and economic- of a successfully completed watershed programme in Vadgaon Village in Osmanabad district, Maharashtra. This programme was implemented by the Rural campus of TISS with assistance from NABARD. The video documents the possibility of community involvement (including the participation of marginalized groups such as women) and demonstrates the transformation that take place through this programme.

Uttara Kannada in Karnataka is one of the most densely forested districts in India. Development projects in the district have displaced one out of every ten inhabitants. The film examines livelihood and survival issues of forest dependent communities against the backdrop of this destruction of a fragile and versatile ecosystem in the Western Ghats region, and State interventions towards Joint Forest Management, funded by multi-lateral aid agencies

The video examines the causes of recurrent drought in Maharashtra, attempting to demonstrate the extent to which drought is a socially created phenomenon, a fall out of ecologically unsound policies and practices, both at micro and macro levels. It includes a brief review of the impact of colonial role and famine policy, as well as the post- independence path of development, premised on the growth of heavy industry, large dams and modernisation of agriculture. This has resulted in deforestation, soil erosion and depletion of ground water reserves, calling for alternative appproaches involving people's participation in integrated watershed management, based on the principles of sustainable development, self-reliance and equity.

MMVS, based in Ajmer and Bhilwara districts of Rajasthan, is a co-ordinating voluntary agency of village committees that have taken up sustainable development of their common property resources based on the principles of contributory voluntary labour and equitable distribution of produce. The video evaluates these efforts in the context of the on-going ecological degradation of the Central Aravallis and governmental initiatives to remedy the situation.

Documents a water cooperative movement of small farmers in a drought-prone block of Maharashtra. In the first part, Pani Panchayat is juxtaposed with the State's promotion of large irrigation projects. The second part is an appraisal of Pani Panchayat and the extent to which it presents an alternative model.

This video is a case study of the drinking water schemes in the districts of Jalgaon and Nashik in Northern Maharashtra. It documents the processes and structures which have enabled the institutionalisation of community centred strategies, facilitated at various levels, by the Women's Studies Unit of TISS, Community Participation Consultant to the project. These include aspects such as training of government functionaries, formation of village water committees and the mechanisms for sustainable local participation.