Udaipur District

Population increase has placed ever-increasing demands on the available groundwater resources, particularly for intensive agricultural activities.

Land-related conflicts in India are on the rise despite some of the most progressive legislations to protect people’s rights over land and forest.

Spatial and temporal information of agriculture, forest, topography, land use change, climate and socio-economic factors are very useful in the planning and implementation of Natural Resource Management (NRM) programs.

The state of Rajasthan has an immense range of ancient and ingenious water harvesting systems, like the famous johads or step wells managed by communities in the arid Thar desert, which receives very low rainfall.

Leela Patel (19) explains how women at Wali, a tribal gram panchayat in Kurabad block, just 30 km away from Udaipur, manage menstruation by using old scraps of cloth. She’s aware of cases when women have had to use ash, dust and soil to soak up their periods. Buying a pack of sanitary pads is a luxury in this poverty-stricken belt.

The city of Udaipur is all about its lakes. If Pichola gets the maximum tourist footfall, the scenic beauty of Fateh Sagar invites solitude lovers. The Udai Sagar lake in the east, which remained the first line of defence for the city, now meets the industrial need for water. 

The pitiful state of some of the water bodies in the country, coupled with the sheer apathy of the government, have forced some well-meaning citizens to come out of their comfort zones and make a difference. Some of these efforts, like the Puttenahalli lake in Bengaluru that is now overflowing with clean water, have been successful, while others are ongoing.

Large-scale people participation in important schemes concludes Jal Manthan 

Huddled in the Aravali range in the southern part of Rajasthan about 26 km from Udaipur, is the largest reserve of phosphate in India.

The name of a place can tell one much about its history. Take Mokla talab, a village 62 km southeast of Udaipur for example. Mokla means sufficient in Rajasthani and talab means pond. The village was named after its overflowing talab. But what happens when the talaab is overflowing no more?