Phansalkar, Sanjiv creator Verma, Shilpa text xu| 2004 continuing ng p.3469-476. Synthesising the lessons of a two-year collaborative research programme by researchers and NGOs, this paper suggests that improved water control strategies, designed after taking contextual factors of resource conditions and socio-ecology into consideration, have a high potential for redressing the livelihood problems of India's most neglected people, besides also leading to sustained and solutary impacts on wider human development indicators for this region. While other development interventions are also important and necessary, public investments in assuring improved irrigation water control can act to kick-start the tribal economy in the region. - Reproduced. Tribes Indigenous populations Economic and Political Weekly 180718