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Resource centre on India's rural distress
 
 

Beat The Drought, Smartly by Shantanu Guha Ray

Despite a 25 percent deficit in rainfall, a village in Udaipur still manages to fill up its water tanks to the brim.

WHEN HE first visited Dilwara, on the outskirts of Udaipur, Andre Ling, then a student from England, saw the village’s only pond, surrounded by filthy stumps of limestone and mud, disappear due to rank neglect over two summers. It was 2003 and Rajasthan had recorded a 45 percent deficit in rainfall that would impact the state for the next three years. “Those were tough days,” says 23-year-old Ling, who volunteered his time in the region and who now works with Seva Mandir, one of India’s well known NGOs based in Udaipur. The pond was dry. So were the tube wells. And environmentalists would lecture the locals on the perils of life without water.

Pushed into a shove, Ling and the villagers sat one night under a starlit night and devised a plan to clean the pond and fill it with water. “Initially, no one cared. But slowly, they realised that water was their lifeline and without it, life would be messy,” says Ling. The men in the village agreed to work round-the-clock for more than six months to clean up the site of the pond and nagged the local councillor to repair silt-laden pipes to carry rainwater into the reservoir. The rains came last year and the pond filled up to its brim. The 7,000, water-starved residents were happy. “The villagers realised the importance of getting water at arms length,” says Gaurav Bajaj, the local sub divisional magistrate.

But in Rajasthan, digging bore wells and ponds is considered routine and does not merit any attention. Ling and his friends realised it was time to start the second phase. He had read in newspapers about the state government’s demand for Rs 12,690.99 crore to provide employment, medical facilities, electricity and water in 32,833 villages spread across 26 drought-affected districts. But no one offered help. The region, home to Rural Development Minister CP Joshi, received no attention from his office. The villagers saw that the water level of the pond was now receding, slowly but steadily. Worse, realising there was not much work after the pond had been dug up and filled with water, the men in the village returned to their old, routine habit of drinking and gambling. “It was a serious concern,” admits Bajaj.

It was then that Coca-Cola India pushed the India chapter of the UK-based Charities Aid Foundation (CAF) to develop a unique project that involved the womenfolk of the village to take charge of its most crucial asset (read water). With a modest funding, a large number of homes in the village made small barricades on their rooftops to collect rainwater and funnel it down through a natural filter made of stone and rubble, to newly dug underground tanks. In the first phase, the village – thanks to some painstaking work by the womenfolk – had 10 such tanks, which eventually swelled to 55. Each tank has a capacity to store 5,000 litres of water. “To have 250,000 litres throughout the year in a village where water once was brought from a distance of six km means a lot,” says Coca-Cola India corporate affairs head Deepak Jolly.

“Water is their lifeline just like ours. The women in the village got charged up and got involved,” says Neelima Khetan, CEO of Seva Mandir who has worked in the region for 15 years in close association with Coca-Cola and CAF.

Those involved with the project are hopeful that almost all of the 110 houses in the village will have such tanks by the end of 2010. “Water management rests with us. We got some funding and put the rest from our savings to create these tanks,” says Pushpa, a 53-year-old mother of four. Agrees Sita, a 51-year-old mother of two, “We could actually sell water to those who want to buy it.”

At a recent function in the village, the women folk queued up for the microphone to narrate how they took charge of the village’s most precious asset: Water. Among the guests were a handful of women from a neighbouring village who still walk more than 10 km to collect water. “We will now do the same in our village,” resolved one guest.

The Dilwara success has encouraged state Chief Minister Ashok Gehlot to push for similar schemes in other villages. In cities, the government has recently pushed a standard ruling for rainwater harvesting and underground storage facilities in all houses. For a state that has a 36 per cent deficit in rainfall this monsoon, the move makes perfect sense.