Check Dam: How a Village in Rajasthan Went from Dry to Water Sufficient in Just One Year

Khohar village near Alwar

It was this hopeless situation that the Sehgal Foundation (SF) first encountered when it decided to come here in 2014. Started by Dr. Surendra Mohan Sehgal in 1999, SF’s mission is to empower rural India. Its intervention in Khohar changed the face of the village in a matter of two years. The organization achieved this amazing result by constructing a check dam to solve the acute water crisis.

The dam construction work started in March 2014. The Foundation identified a water source near the Aravalli Hills, which went into a drain during the rainy season. The SF team decided to build a check dam here to improve the water table in the area.

What are check dams?

The dam has improved agriculture in the village.

These dams are small and sometimes temporary structures across channels that help reduce the velocity of water. They are mostly constructed using stone/brick masonry, which is sandwiched between layers of soil.

“Since water flows at a very high speed, it does not percolate into the ground. These dams reduce the velocity of water and hence water stays at one location for a longer period, which gives it a chance to percolate into the ground. This leads to an improved ground water table,” explains Salahuddin Saiphy, Program Leader, SF.

In dry areas like Khohar, check dams help increase groundwater recharge. Water can be stored in aquifers or catchment areas, from which it can be drawn during the dry season for irrigation, livestock watering, and even drinking water supply.

Since the construction of check dams requires little machinery, funding and large scale work, this technique is perfect for a location like Khohar where the community can also be engaged in the construction of the dam.

The first task for SF was to mobilize the community and make the villagers aware of the benefits of check dams.

SF sensitized and trained a water management committee from amongst the villagers for the construction and maintenance of the dam. After 126 days of hard work, the SF team was ready with a check dam; it was 185 metres long and 5 metres high.

The Foundation also constructed a catchment area, which was 255 acres big and had the capacity to store 32 crore litres of water annually.

The entire cost of construction was about Rs. 56 lakh, which was taken care of by the SF team. The community contributed a total of Rs. 1 lakh, which has been earmarked for repair and maintenance purposes in the future.

The team had expected to see the benefit of their work in two to three years time but were surprised to see positive results during the first monsoon itself.

The impact

The new development has brought down the annual migration of villagers by 30-40%.

This intervention by SF did not just benefit the 150 households in Khohar, but also 10,000 people from nearby villages. The water yield increased by about 30% and migration too reduced to a great extent.

Despite scanty rainfall this year, the check dam has already helped increase soil moisture up to 60% and raised ground water levels. As a result of the improved water availability, agricultural activities have also received a boost in the village

15 Progressive Indian Villages That Will Make You Want to Ditch Your City Life Right Away!

In today’s world, Gandhi’s words that India’s survival depends on the well-being of its villages seem even more pertinent.

Seventy percent of India’s population – roughly one-tenth of humanity – live in the countryside. This makes rural India a focal point for issues of national and global concern: the impact of high population and development on natural resources; lack of sanitation and its impact on health; water pollution from raw sewage and pesticide runoff; soil loss and desertification due to erosion, overgrazing and deforestation.

This is also why the ability of India’s villages to offer fulfilling lives to their inhabitants is germinal to India’s future as a great global power.

Dharnai, India’s first solar powered village

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Over the years, a few of India’s resilient rural villages have been trying to remain relevant and adapt to change without losing their valued traditions and skills that have survived down the ages.

From renewable energy to organic farming, here are 15 Indian villages that have walked the talk and are shining examples of what a community can do when it comes together for a better tomorrow.

1. Dharnai, Bihar

Dharnai

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Once struggling to get basic electricity like most villages in India, Dharnai has now changed its fate and become the first village in India to completely run on solar power. Residents of Dharnai had been using diesel-based generators and hazardous fuel like cow dung to meet the electricity requirement for decades, which were both costly and unhealthy. Since the launch of Greenpeace’s solar-powered 100 kilowatt micro-grid in 2014, quality electricity is being provided to more than 2,400 people living in this village in Jehanabad district.

2. Payvihir, Maharashtra

Payvihir

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An obscure village in the foothills of Melghat region of Amravati district in Maharashtra, Payvihir, has set an example for the country by consistently showing how communities and NGOs can work together to conserve the environment and ensure sustainable livelihood for people.

In 2014, Payvihir bagged the Biodiversity Award from the United Nation’s Development Programme for turning a barren, 182-hectare land under community forest right, into a forest. Recently, the village also came up with an out-of-the-box idea of selling organic sitafals (custard apples) and mangoes in Mumbai under their brand Naturals Melghat!

Read More Here: From Growing Its Own Forest to Selling Organic Fruits, This Village Funds Its Own Development

3. Hiware Bazaar, Maharashtra

Hiware Bazaar

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Amid the desperate denizens scrounging for water in the drought-affected parts of Maharashtra stands a village that has not felt the need to call a single water tanker – in fact, it hasn’t called for one since 1995. The village also has 60 millionaires and the highest per-capita income in India.

Facing a major water crisis each year because of the measly rainfall it gets, the village decided to shun water-intensive crops and opted for horticulture and dairy farming. Their consistent water conservation initiatives led to rising groundwater levels and the village started to prosper. Today, the village has 294 open wells, each brimming with water just as the village brims with prosperity.

4. Odanthurai, Tamil Nadu

Odanthurai

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Odanthurai, a panchayat situated in Mettupalayam taluk of Coimbatore district, has been a model village for the other villages for more than a decade. The panchayat has not only been generating electricity for their own use, but also selling power to Tamil Nadu Electricity Board.

Having already won international acclaim through its unique welfare schemes and energy self-sufficiency drives, Odanthurai near Mettupalayam has begun efforts to develop a corpus of Rs 5 crore to install wind and solar energy farms. This project will enable free supply of electricity to over 8,000 residents.

For contact details, click here.

5. Chizami, Nagaland

Chizami

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A small village in Nagaland’s Phek district, Chizami has been scripting a quiet revolution in terms of socioeconomic reforms and environmental protection for almost a decade. A model village in the Naga society, Chizami is today visited by youth from Kohima and neighbouring villages for internships in the Chizami model of development.

What is unique in the Chizami model of development is that marginalised women have played an important role in bringing about this socio-economic and sustainable transformation that is rooted in traditional practices of the state.

For contact details, click here.

Read More Here: A Tiny Naga Village Has Been Spearheading Women’s Rights & Sustainable Farming for Almost a Decade

6. Gangadevipalli, Andhra Pradesh

Gangadevipalli

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If India lives in its villages, then the model it perhaps must follow is Gangadevipalli, a hamlet in Andhra Pradesh’s Warangal district where every house has the bare necessities of life, and more. From regular power and water supply to a scientific water filtration plant, a community-owned cable TV service and concrete, well-lit roads, this model village has been steadily gaining in prosperity thanks to a disciplined and determined community that has also managed to work in harmony towards goals set collectively.

For contact details, click here.

7. Kokrebellur, Karnataka

Pelicans in Kokrebellur

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Kokrebellur, a small village in Maddur taluk of Karnataka, offers you an unusual and mesmerizing sight as you’ll find some of India’s rarest species of birds chirping in the backyards of these village homes. Named after the Painted Storks, which are called Kokkare in Kannada, this small village (which is not a reserved bird sanctuary) has set an example of how birds and humans can co-exist in complete harmony. The villagers treat these birds as a part of their family and have also created a small area for wounded birds to rest. Birds are so friendly here that they even allow you to go very close to them.

8. Khonoma, Nagaland

Khonoma

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From being a cradle of resistance to the British colonial rule, Khonoma has come a long way to become India’s first green village. Home to a 700-year-old Angami settlement and perfectly terraced fields, this unique, self-sustaining village in Nagaland is a testament to the willpower of the tribal groups of Nagaland to protect and conserve their natural habitat. All hunting is banned in the village, which also practices its own ecofriendly version of jhum agriculture (instead of the traditional slash-and-burn method) that enriches the soil.

Also See: VIDEO – This Wallflower Of A Settlement In Nagaland Is India’s First Green Village

9. Punsari, Gujarat

Himanshu Patel, the Sarpanch of Punsari (centre) and happy villagers

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Punsari village, barely 100 km from Ahmedabad, could be a textbook case of development. Closed-circuit cameras, water purifying plants, biogas plants, air-conditioned schools, Wi-Fi, biometric machines – the village has it all. And all of it was done in a matter of eight years, at a cost of Rs. 16 crore. The man behind the transformation is its young tech-savvy sarpanch – 33-year-old Himanshu Patel – who proudly states that his village offers “the amenities of a city but the spirit of a village.”

For contact details, click here.

10. Ramchandrapur, Telangana

Ramchandrapur

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The first village in Telangana region to win the Nirmal Puraskar in 2004-05, Ramchandrapur came into focus a decade ago when the villagers pledged to donate their eyes for the visually challenged. Among its many achievements, all the houses in the village have smokeless chullahs and toilets with tap-water facilities. It is the first village in the state to construct a sub-surface dyke on the nearby river and solve drinking water problems by constructing two over-head tanks in each house. The village does not have drainage system and all the water generated from each house is diverted to the gardens, which are planted by the villagers in each house.

11. Mawlynnong, Meghalaya

Mawlynnong

In the tiny hamlet of Mawlynnong, plastic is banned, spotless paths are lined with flowers, bamboo dustbins stand at every corner, volunteers sweep the streets at regular intervals and large signboards warn visitors against littering. Here, tidying up is a ritual that everyone – from tiny toddlers to toothless grannies – takes very seriously. Thanks to the tireless efforts of the village community, this small, 600-odd-person hamlet in Meghalaya is today renowned as the cleanest village in India and Asia.

12. Piplantri, Rajasthan

Piplantri

For the last several years, the Piplantri village panchayat has been saving girl children and increasing the green cover in and around it at the same time. Here, villagers plant 111 trees every time a girl is born and the community ensures these trees survive, attaining fruition as the girls grow up. They also set up a fixed deposit for the girls and make their parents sign an affidavit that ensures their education.

Over the last nine years, people here have managed to plant over a quarter million trees on the village’s grazing commons. To prevent these trees from being infested with termite, the residents planted over 2.5 million aloe vera plants around them. Now, these trees, especially the aloe vera, are a source of livelihood for several residents.

For contact details, click here.

Read More Here: This Village in Rajasthan Plants 111 Trees for Every Girl Child Born. Thanks to One Man’s Vision.

13. Eraviperoor, Kerala

Eraviperoor

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At a time when the country is abuzz with talks about Digital India, and how technology can be taken to the remotest corners of the country, the Eraviperoor gram panchayat in Pathanamthitta district of Kerala is leading way. It is the first gram panchayat in Kerala to have free Wi-Fi for the general public.

The village has also launched a free palliative care scheme for the poor and is the first panchayat in the state to get ISO-9001 certification for its Primary Health Centre. It has also been recognised as a Model Hi-tech Green Village, by the Horticulture Department, for its green initiatives.

For contact details, click here.

14. Baghuvar, Madhya Pradesh

Baghuvar

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A small village in Madhya Pradesh, Baghuvar is the only village in India that has functioned without a sarpanch since independence, and that too efficiently. Every house in the village has its own lavatories and there is a common toilet complex that is used for social functions. The village has underground sewage lines as well as the highest number of biogas plants in the state. The gas produced is used as cooking fuel and to light up the village. Thanks to its unique way of water conservation, this village also has enough water to survive drought-like conditions for years.

15. Shikdamakha, Assam

Shikdamakha

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Way before Swacch Bharat, in 2010, a remote Assam village had set cleanliness goals for itself. Shikdamakha, near Guwahati, runs cleanliness drives and competitions, and wants to surpass Mawlynnong in Meghalaya as Asia’s cleanest village. A plastic-free village that earned the maximum points in the cleanliness sub-index of Union Ministry of Drinking Water and Sanitation, Shikdamakha has also earned the coveted Open Defecation Free status recently.

Harvesting Rainwater & Solar Energy at the Same Time – Using an Umbrella!

From harvesting rainwater and solar energy, to providing shade to passers-by – Ulta Chaata is one device that does it all.

“Rainwater is the purest form of water. It’s just that once it hits the ground, it does not remain pure anymore and requires high levels of filtration. We thought of collecting the water in its pure form and filtering it for drinking purposes,” says Samit Choksi, the co-founder of ThinkPhi, a green technology startup focused on developing products for a more sustainable tomorrow.

ThinkPhi’s flagship product called Ulta Chaata converts rain water into potable drinking water during monsoons, and produces energy with the help of solar panels in the dry seasons.

One unit of Ulta Chaata can collect 8-10 lakh quintal of water annually and capture energy with maximum peak power of 1.5 Kw. It is currently being used at over 50 locations across the country.

Ulta Chaata, Hindi for inverted umbrella, is a device that looks exactly like it is named. During monsoons, Ulta Chaata’s concave canopy captures rain water, which then trickles down to reach a filter. The water is filtered using active carbon filtration – a method that uses a bed of activated carbon to remove impurities. The filter reduces the turbidity of water flowing through it, thereby making it potable. “According to WHO, water below 5 Nephelometric Turbidity Unit (NTU) is potable water,” says Samit. A cluster of 15 Chaatas are connected to a Phi box with another fine filtration layer to remove bacteria, after which the water becomes usable.

It is best to install Ulta Chaata in clusters of over 10 units and each Chaata takes up about 1 square feet of area.

During dry months, solar panels fixed on the canopy harness clean energy that is stored in a battery within every Chaata. This further powers the Chaata and also supplies energy for the lighting system installed in the Chaata. The energy stored can be used to provide power backup for internal lighting on the premises where it is installed too.

Some of Ulta Chaata team members were recently invited by the Indian Railways to speak about how the product could benefit them. “What we realized is that while Ulta Chaata can provide clean water and energy it can also provide environmentally friendly shading at a lower cost in comparison to the archaic railway platform roofs, which are costly to install and maintain,” says Samit.

The Chaatas cost between Rs. 4.5 and 5 lakh and are warrantied for 10 years. But according to ThinkPhi, the amount of water and energy generated helps users get their returns in about a year.

For people to believe in such a system we didn’t want to come up with another purification device that sits in your backyard and no one sees it. We wanted to make it look good to instil a sense of curiosity among people. That’s why aesthetics was an important part for us and Ulta Chaata looks like a well-designed piece,” says Samit, emphasizing that one of ThinkPhi’s major aims is to change behaviours and encourage people to use sustainable products.

The Phi box has sensors for the Chaata clusters to interact with the company and the users. The first one is to detect whenever the filter is about to clog due to dust and dirt and needs cleaning. It sends a message to ThinkPhi informing which device needs servicing.

The second sensor is meant to calculate the amount of energy and water collected. This further helps bring about behavioural change among people by showing them inspiring numbers. The other sensors measure water purity and also inform the company in case the lights on any of the Chaatas are out. Additionally, users can interact with ThinkPhi about using an app on their phones to register complaints, ask questions in case of any problems, etc.

5 Times Indian Villages Took Extraordinary Measures to Fight & Defeat Drought

Here are the 5 times where a simple measure has effectively helped farmers fight droughts and emerge successful.

For representational purposes. Source: Wikimedia

1. How the people of Devagiripatnam dug themselves out of a drought
When a village in Telangana, that had been facing an acute water shortage for as long as 60 years, received no aid from banks and politicians, the local people decided to dig up their own means for survival.
Devagiripatnam, a tiny village in Warangal district, is home to nearly 250 ponds that were dug by the villagers as a last resort to tackle the drought. Luckily for them, their action helped them not just survive drought but also harvest crops biannually. Having no groundwater reserves, that they could use for farming, the farmers formed groups and took to digging small ponds.
The groups shared the cost of digging and also covered the bottom of ponds with layers of crushed stone and sand. So when the rains hit, people could store the rainwater that they could later use to irrigate their patches of land.

Beating the odds, the villagers of Devagiripatnam not only survived, but found sustainable measures to remain unaffected by drought. In fact, when they are not raising crops, the farmers breed fish in their ‘hand-made’ ponds and sell in local markets. Taking a cue from their success story, neighbouring villages of Kasimdevipeta, Ramaiahpally and Panchothkulapally are also employing the Devagiripatnam model.

For representational purposes. Source: Wikimedia

2. How an intervention by a local organisation helped farmers in a Odisha village survive drought using traditional methods
In Bargarh district’s parched Paikmal block, more than 500 km from state capital Bhubaneswar, a village is able to cultivate rice and several varieties of vegetables, even during drought. Bringing back the traditional method of using a chahala, a small water harvesting structure, a farmer is able to sell vegetables worth ₹2,000 every week in nearby markets; without resorting to any chemical fertilisers or pesticides in the produce.
This was not always the case. After suffering from sequential droughts that stretched over three decades, the villagers of Kharamal migrated to look for jobs at brick kilns in Andhra Pradesh and farmlands in Haryana, leaving behind a livelihood that had been passed down over generations.
In 2005, an intervention by a local voluntary organisation, Manav Adhikar Seva Samiti (MASS), helped villagers combat drought by implementing their own long-lost traditional methods of water harvesting
With ample support from the organisation, villagers took up various integrated ecological restoration activities that involved gully plugs, plantation on catchment areas and hilly slopes, check dams and revival of defunct water structures. In a span of three years, the villagers were able to expand the cultivable area in the village from around 70 acres to 250 acres.

3. How a tank filling scheme rejuvenated 15,000 dried-up wells in a taluk in Karnataka, while rest of the state reeled under the worst hit drought
For a village that had its people quarrel over tap water, supplied once in three days, the story is quite different today. Thanks to a project undertaken by the local head in 2014, the groundwater table in Channapatna taluk was recharged with water from Shimsha river, a tributary of the Cauvery.
Under the project, 65 tanks, including Kanva reservoir and 17 major tanks, were filled with water pumped up from the Iggaluru barrage that stores the water from Shimsha. Within months of filling the tanks, the impact was quite evident and immediate. The rejuvenation of 15,000 dried wells helped to put farming operations in the parched taluk, known for its sericulture, beetle leaves and coconut farming, back on track.
Finally, after suffering from the lack of drinking water for over 18 years, the villagers could breathe a sigh of relief.

For representational purposes. Source: Wikimedia

4. How a village in Madhya Pradesh conserved water by adopting alternative farming practices
Falling under the worst drought-affected district in the region, this village in Tikamgarh managed to keep the perils of drought at bay by tweaking its farming practices. Grown crops like wheat and soya bean which guzzled up water had resulted in water levels dropping along with the yield. Finally, the villagers of Gayajeetpura, acting on the advice of an NGO, started replacing a part of their crop share with organic horticulture.
This change helped the farmers optimize the use of water effectively. They also adopted the concept of contour farming, wherein they created small slopes on their fields and planted vegetables in close rows. The implementation of this method is vital, as a wider area is covered with the water trickling down all over the slopes.

5. How a doctor saved his village from drought by raising money and building dams
By building 11 check dams across rivers and nullahs within a 10 km radius of Fatehgarh, Madhya Pradesh, Anil Joshi, an Ayurvedic doctor, saved the lives of farmers affected by prolonged droughts. As Anil realised, each successful harvest was followed by years of drought due to which the farmers were adversely affected. To help the community, he suggested the concept of check dams, which help rainwater percolate into the ground, hence increasing the groundwater level. After much struggle, his effort helped the farmers, if at all in a small way.
This prompted the doctor into thinking that the solution for the drought could only be a permanent dam.
In 2010, along with the villagers of Somli, he managed to raise ₹1 lakh for building a permanent check dam, by collecting ₹1 from each villager. Not only was the village be salvaged from the drought, the doctor went on to build 10 more dams in Fatehgarh and  plans on building more.