Dry Run

When Sujay Patankar, a software engineer with Persistent Technologies, read in the The Indian Express about water woes in drought-hit Pune d...

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When Sujay Patankar, a software engineer with Persistent Technologies, read in the The Indian Express about water woes in drought-hit Pune district — the long wait for the tanker, struggle to extract water from deep wells, and women bearing the brunt of it — he wished he could do something.

So, he contacted Sanjay Deshpande, joint MD of D.S. Kulkarni Developers, who had already initiated a novel water scheme for the severely affected areas.

Then, with help form two friends, who did not want to be named, Deshpande donated a ferrocrete storage tank each for Kendur in Shirur taluka and Chaudhari Wadi in Pabal. Now, tankers can directly empty water into them, saving harassment to women and reducing chances of accidents.

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Patankar observed Sanjay Deshpande setting up the tanks — each at a cost of Rs 17,000. Now, Patankar and a friend from the College of Engineering, Pune, Shrinivas Pandharpure, who works at Narayangaon, are donating another tank to the villagers. And as a result of e-mails Patankar sent to colleagues, about 15 software engineers have joined hands to donate yet another tank. ‘‘I had seen men playing cards and women struggling to get water. I decided to do something,” he adds.

Deshpande, who has himself faced acute water crisis as a child — his parents still live in a village in Amravati — has identified 20 villages in the locality that require storage tanks. ‘‘We store water by harvesting it in buildings we set up but that’s not enough. We must look at the needs of villagers whose mainstay is farming and see how we can help. That’s important to maintain ecological balance.’’

Storage tanks are a fire-fighting mission, admits Deshpande. ‘‘We will have to put in place a long-term scheme to help the villagers.” He’s put his thinking cap on together with graphic designer Janki Desai — who’s helping in the project as well. Now, Deshpande tells us that after they presented the Kendur story to the Rotary Club, Downtown (Camp), its members have agreed to sponsoring three more tanks.