Subject: Re: Rainwater harvesting - msg#00509

On Fri, 23 May 2003 08:59:45 +0000, "Lawrence Stephen
<larrystephen-PkbjNfxxIARBDgjK7y7TUQ@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>" wrote:

Dear Aloysius ,

It was heartning to read your info on Rajasthan rain
water harvesting . Its also happening in Maharashtra in
Raigad district and it being implemented by a goan
social worker Nicola and Clarence who look forward
making this happen in Goa to.

The team member Dr. Ajit Gokhale too has spoken on
water conservation and harvesting to a forum organised
by CII in Goa a couple of months ago . Maybe with
people with your like mindedness could make this a
reality . Just thought I'd share with you the
happenings of this project in Raigad district.

These are all professionals dedicated to the purpose
and we ( you me and all ) do need to support them so
that their dream is a reality for the betterment of our
society.

Regards

Lawrence Stephen


It is estimated by the year 2025, 66% of the world's
population will face water shortage unless water is
conserved wisely and used more causiously . Stark
choices face rural people every day. Which should
survive : the family, the cow or those withering crops.
And yet with the best practice, water harvesting and
management of total water resources : villages in
different parts of India have demonstrated that even in
drought years, water still flows, crops grow and cows
produce milk. These are signs of hope, oasis' around
water harvesting structures when all around is parched
land.

Rain Water Harvesting (RWH) is a practice prevalence in
ancient India. The principle is to conserve rain water
where it falls, according to local needs and conditions
. Rain water can be harvested for two purposes:

Storage for ready use

Charged into soil for withdrawal later ( groundwater
recharging ).

The Western Ghat villages in the Konkan region receive
torrential rain during the monsoons, but water sources
dry up and villagers face severe water scarcity in the
months that follow.

In 2003 " The Year of Fresh Water " this is what
brought 4 organisations together - to address the need
for Rain Water Harvesting in Raigad District.

- Society to Heal, Aid, Restore, Educate ( SHARE ) -
the Corporate Social Responsibility unit of United
Television
- Rotary Clubs ( Mumbai )
- Ion Exchange India Ltd.
- Sophia College Ex - Students Association ( SCESA)

These are their stories.

VILLAGE 1 :- VIHULE KHOND

Two years ago, Nirupa Bhangar, ex-student, ex- Acting
Principal of Sophia College and then Consultant, Rural
Development with Ion Exchange India Ltd., a Water
Management Company, met a few women in a village in
Raigad District, Maharashtra who were desperate that
water be made available to them. Given below is her
first hand account of how simply and amazingly this
problem is being solved.

"For 5 months a year, the village wells would dry up
and we would have to walk 3-4 Kms a day in search of
water." This was the beginning of a rain water
harvesting project in village Vihule Khond, Taluka
Mangaon which simply meant creating ponds to trap the
heavy monsoon rains and preserving water for the dry
summer months.

An NGO, SHARE (the Corporate Social Responsibility unit
of United Television) initiated work in 23 villages in
Mangaon Taluka, Raigad District. Nicola Monteiro
Stephen, an ex-student of Sophia College and an alumini
of Tata Institute of Social Sciences, currently works
as a social worker with SHARE. She took on the project
responsibility.

Technical input and training were provided by Dr. Ajit
Gokhale, Expert, Water Management, Ion Exchange;
funding came from United Television & other private
sources; awareness building, social work intervention &
monitoring by SHARE; and labour & land from the people
of Vihule Khond.

The result : two rain water harvesting (RWH) ponds
have been dug; and bund build across a monsoon stream
accommodating 11 lakhs litres of water , the catchment
area upfront the government masonary structure
increased; and regular watershed structures like
trenches and gully plugs were constructed. This reduced
the water crisis by 2 months only.

More intervention and support was required. SCESA
(Sophia College Ex-Student's Association) put SHARE in
touch with Rotarian Yogesh Parikh whose club - The
Rotary Club of Bombay Seaface, adopted 2 villages for
RWH, and who took it upon himself to influence other
Rotary Clubs. That's how Manoj Mehta - President Elect,
The Rotary Club of Bombay Metropolitan visited Vihule
Khond with a group of core members and pledged support.

The task was enormous; Lining of 2 huge rain water
harvesting ponds, on one side by masonry structures.
The villagers worked relentlessly for 2 1/2 months in
the scorching sun. On an average, 15 persons worked
everyday on a rotation basis to put in their share of
voluntary labour (Sharmdhan) alongside the team of
skilled masons.

Biweekly visits, almost daily telephonic messages by
SHARE's Social Worker - Tushar Inamdar, and a local
engineer - Clarence Monteiro, fondly called "Uncle" by
the villagers; and monthly trips by Rotarian Manoj
Mehta for moral support, finally reaped fruit.

Today 2 huge RWH ponds are ready. They will accommodate
6 lacs and 25 lacs litres of water. Not only will they
provide water to the villagers and their livestock, but
their proximity to an open well will recharge the well,
extending its water availability by almost 2 months.

Today, the 1100 villagers of Vihule Khond are proud.
They have put in 6250 mandays of voluntary labour (@
Rs. 50 = Rs. 312,500/-). They propose to do second
cropping, encourage their wives & daughters to get
involved in agrobased livelihood activities, since now
less time will be spent in water collection. Ashok
Bhave and Narayan Hipte, current and Ex-Sarpanches who
spearheaded. the Shramdhan activities shyly ask Nicola,
"Will an organization support one final pond already
excavated thru government funds? This will solve our
water problem upto June". This is what they hope will
happen, when The Rotary Governor Elect Nitin Mangaldas
felicitates their hard work and hands over the RWH
ponds to them on May 25, 2003.

VILLAGE 2 : BHANDIVILI

"It is a humiliating experience, when we have to go to
the next wadi to beg for water "says a resident of
Bhandivili village, Buddhawada.

Despite the heavy monsoons, Bhandivili Village is one
of the many villages in Mangaon, Taluka Raigad District
that faces acute water crisis from the month of March.
The sole open well which serves a community of 300
people runs dries while the piped water from the
governments' reservoir is irregular, causing
innumerable quarrels.

Shailesh Lokande, a village resident and a teacher
attached to a nearby primary school approached SHARE (
the Corporate Social Responsibility unit of United
Television ) to help the wadi tackle the water crisis.

SHARE addresses issues affecting people's lives in
villages in Mangaon, Tal. and Mhasala Talukas; Rain
Water Harvesting (RWH) being one of the interventions.

The philosophy adopted by the NGO - SHARE is that
villagers put in all the manual unskilled labour
required to make the RWH structures while support for
material and technical know-how is provided.

Bhandivili is at the base of a series of sparsely
forested hills. Dr. Ajit Gokhale, Expert, Water
Management, Ion Exchange, a member of the
multidisciplinary team proposed gabions, enlarging a
waterhole and creating an alternative site for the
village buffaloes to bathe.

SCESA has been actively promoting rural initiatives
being implemented by ex-students of Sophia College,
Mumbai. SCESA was instrumental in bringing The Rotary
Club of Bombay SeaFace and SHARE together to provide
drinking water to the people of Bhandivili. Core
members of the club visited Mangaon Taluka thrice and
met innumerable times to understand, discuss and
finally provide full support for the making of RWH
structures.

Today, the villagers have manually made 20 gabions
along the monsoon streams which run from the top of the
hills into the open well and village. These chain link
structures filled with locally available stones and
pebbles are meant to slow down the flow of rainwater,
to prevent a portion of rainwater from being lost to
the sea and to recharge groundwater. Besides them, are
dug trenches which collect the overflow and enhance
recharging. The waterhole has been excavated and lined
on three sides to accommodate 80,000 ( Eighty thousand
) litres of water thus creating a second source of
water. The land below the open well and besides this
lined waterhole has been excavated and two structures -
one gabion and one concrete bund have been constructed
to create a alternative site for the buffaloes. This
site is to accommodate 10,000 ( Ten thousand ) litres
of water.

Next year the villagers' well should have water even in
the months of March and April. Thanks to their handmade
gabions. The year after the water should last even
longer.

Nitin Mangaldas, Rotary Governor Elect will hand over
the project to the villagers on May 25, 2003, for a
grassroot facility should be owned and maintained by
the people who finally benefit from it.

VILLAGE 3 : SONGHAR

Migration of rural masses into cities creates a burden
on the city's infrastructure. But most often rural
people have no choice but to come to cities to look for
work. Read on, how once again SCESA ( Sophia College
Ex-Student Association ) was instrumental in bringing
The Rotary Club of Bombay Sea Face and SHARE ( the
Corporate Social Responsibility unit of United
Television) together to initiate the reversal of
migration ( from cities to villages ) by increasing the
availability of water for agricultural purposes, in
Songhar village, Mhasla Taluka, Raigad District.

It has been the vision of young Vilas Parawe, a
petrochemical engineer and resident of Songhar, that
his village should be self - sufficient. Villagers
should have opportunities to work, provide for their
families within the village. But what happens when one
is not able to cultivate ones land for lack of water?
This is what brought Vilas to SHARE to seek solutions
to his village problems. The village has a population
of 750 people, belonging to two communities - Kunbis
and Dalits. The multidisciplinary team consisting of
Tushar Inamdar, Nicola Monteiro Stephen, social
workers, SHARE, Dr. Ajit Gokhale, Expert, Water
Management, Ion Exchange along with the villagers
identified sites for large ponds and gabions . In
Songhar, the identified sites belonged to the Dalits
and so it took a while for the two communities to
discuss the issue. By the time the No Objection
Certificates (NOCs) were obtained; it was well into
May. There was not enough time (before the monsoons),
to excavate a rainwater harvesting pond to accommodate
11 lakh litres of water. Intervention meant quick
decisions and instant support. That is what the core
members of The Rotary Club of Bombay SeaFace did . They
visited the village, meet with the newly formed village
water committee; back in Mumbai discussed the project
at their club's meeting and pledged their support.

With only a month available for shramdaan ( voluntary
work ) and well into the season for "rice field
preparation", the villagers decided to make gabions to
slow down the flow of rainwater along the hill slopes
and thus recharge the two bore wells and one open well.
School children along with SHARE's community worker -
Sushant Pawar made stone gabions in the nullahs to
enhance groundwater recharging. To address the
immediate need of the villagers i.e storage facilities
for 10,000 liters of drinking water: 2 sintex tanks,
alongwith a pipe line and valves were installed. Rotary
Governor Elect Nitin Mangaldas will hand over the
project to the villagers on May 25, 2003 and the
villagers hope that an organization will pledge its
support to help them to excavate a huge rainwater
harvesting pond, lined on one side, to recharge their
rice fields and borewells in the immediate future.
This will make Vilas Parawe's dream of second cropping
and agrobased livelihood activities a reality.

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