From wells hitting rock to overflowing tanks

The heat’s stifling in Raigad district’s little wadi of Khamgaon, about 200 kms south of Mumbai. But the scenario is in marked co...

The heat’s stifling in Raigad district’s little wadi of Khamgaon, about 200 kms south of Mumbai. But the scenario is in marked contrast to the drought pictures of the past. Water collected in the bunds dotting the arid landscape sparkle under the noon-day sky.

‘‘Khamgaon’s headed for water sufficiency,’’ smiles Nicola Monteiro of Society to Heal, Aid, Restore & Educate (SHARE), an NGO that’s introduced water harvesting in several talukas of Maharashtra.

A drought-prone hamlet, Khamgaon’s 350-odd population, made up mostly of farmers, regularly witnessed ‘‘mass migration to the city’’ as farming came to a stop in

the summer months from March to May, says Roshan Parave (19), the matriculate-studied son of a farmer who owns 5 guntas of paddy fields.

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Even water gathering was a two-kilometre walk to the community well in the next village, he adds.

Today, a two-year-old effort to trap and store rain water is ‘‘brimming with success,’’ grins Vilas Parave (31) a petro-chemical engineer working with SHARE, who’s from the wadi of Songar next door to Khamgaon.

True to its Shiv Kalin Paani Sathvan Yojana across the state, the government had offered each family Rs 20,000 to construct and store rainwater in concrete pits, he says. Khamgaon wadi turned it down.

‘‘We prefer using fresh water even if it means a two-kilometre walk in the hot sun,’’ shrugs Roshan.

	Water wonders thatworked for Khamgaon

			• Unlike water harvesting efforts that normally use just one technique for collecting rain water, Khamgaon wadi used several: trenched hills, bunded streams and a pipe, together to ensure not a drop was missed • All construction was done by villagers for free. Material — cement, sand, stone, iron — worth Rs 2.80 lakh came from Rotary Club sponsors • The drought-prone hamlet is today water sufficient with the community well and two borewells recharged and the tanks overflowing Story continues below this ad

So marrying ingenuity to common sense, Khamgaon tapped its topography for water harvesting.

Almost 682 trenches were dug across the small hills that ensured rain water would be collected. Today, a 10 ft (length) x 1 1/2 (width) trench, with a depth of 1 ft, holds 70 to 80 litres of water in the monsoons, explains Vilas.

Next came semi-circular bunds (walls) across four small streams that vary from 9 ft to 35 ft, and a 45-ft C-shaped pond. Connected to each other, with the pond as the main collection unit, a pipe brings the water to the village. ‘‘March, which used to otherwise be dry, is seeing so much water in the village, that the two borewells have been recharged and the tanks there are overflowing,’’ Vilas says proudly.