Success Stories and Case Studies

Neighbour's envy, user's pride!
Basavaraj's house in drought-prone Chitradurga district in Karnataka is mostly self-sufficient for water. Was it serendipity, luck or something more? Posted on 20 Oct, 2014 12:46 PM

Chitradurga district in southern Karnataka is infamous for drought. People here constantly suffer from water shortage and in the last few years, the problem has escalated due to poor rainfall. 

Basavaraj's water-sufficient house in Chitradurga
Great things can happen when 'theirs' becomes 'ours'
Kaikondarahalli kere went from being a polluted, sewage-filled cess pool into a flourishing, clean lake home to birds, fish and the local community too! Posted on 13 Oct, 2014 10:59 AM

Priya Ramasubban personifies the words ‘good things come in small packages’. This sprightly, self motivated enthusiast, saw a marshy, polluted cess pool, hemmed in by an open tract of land, where labourers and migrants daily dipped in for their morning ablutions. Talking to people around, she realised that this soggy piece of wetland was once a lake.

A lake once more: Kaikondarahalli Lake
A road less travelled: The Waghad project
A group of farmers in Maharashtra overcame challenges posed by a community-based irrigation system, to manage their water and their livelihoods. How did they do it? Posted on 07 Sep, 2014 04:18 PM

Waghad Dam in Nashik, Maharashtra, constructed in 1984-85, irrigated less than 1% of its total irrigable command area, while farmers in the tail area did not receive any water. Bapu Upadhye of Samaj Parivartan Kendra organised the local farmers, mobilized them to come together and fight for their water quota.

Waghad Project:Community managed irrigation system
Well revival effort sees many other benefits
A community drive to revive wells in Mokhla talab near Udaipur results in water security for longer periods of time as well as making leaders out of women. Posted on 05 Sep, 2014 12:59 PM

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?

Well lining has improved water availability
Sparkle in the mountains: The indigenous 'Hydroger'
Villages of Nagaland that aren't connected to the electricity grid have been given hope by a new source of power. Posted on 04 Sep, 2014 10:50 PM

It is a labour of love. For 10 years, the team at Nagaland Empowerment of People through Economic Development (NEPeD) held this experiment close to their hearts- a daunting task that is lighting up lives in far-off villages in the mountains of Nagaland today. The hydroger has made way for many to diversify their income through new activities and reduced women’s day-to-day drudgery.

Hydroger machine at Logwesunyu village, Nagaland
This scientist turned farmer does it all!
Dr. John Fernandez, a scientist with the National Institute of Oceanography is successfully managing his Khazan land in Batim, Goa. He rears shrimp, fish & pigs and even makes salt! Posted on 04 Sep, 2014 05:35 PM

Khazans are a unique man-made ecosystem that give Goa its traditional form of farming. Khazan lands are reclaimed lands from the river or sea.

Dr. John's Khazan next to the Zuari river
Ripples of Sukhomajri
Sukhomajri village, the model of watershed development, is today a witness to man's changing priorities which is separating him from his environment. The video tells the full story. Posted on 25 Jul, 2014 11:46 AM
Sukhomajri village has long been a reminder of people's participation in ecological preservation and in turn, greater economic good.
The main irrigation tank at Sukhomajri
A water supply system that even Delhi would envy
Indwalgaon in Uttarakhand harnessed available government resources to move from a water-deficit to a water-adequate state, thanks to its Pradhan Madanlal. Posted on 06 Jul, 2014 08:28 PM

 Visitors and the Uttarakhand Tourism Department liken the mountain to 'devbhoomi' or the heavens but it isn't often that a villager of the area echoes those sentiments. Most of them are weary of the unending struggle to live in harmony with those steep slopes that make all manner of infrastructure difficult.

Madan Lal gazes at a water supply scheme
Goa University shows state how to harvest rainwater
What started as an effort to showcase rainwater harvesting methods and their benefits at Goa University, has now become an effort worth emulating by the entire state. Posted on 29 Jun, 2014 09:18 AM

As a faculty of the Earth Sciences Department at Goa University, Dr. A.G Chachadi wanted to develop a facility to harvest rainwater and recharge groundwater at the campus at Taleigao Plateau. He wanted to showcase rainwater harvesting within the campus and also spread awareness on the benefits of doing it.

Aquifer recharge and RWH project at Goa University
In-house experts: the barefoot hydrogeologists of the Himalayan regions
A nation-wide effort to create a cadre of people with a sound understanding of their local geology and groundwater is resulting in people who know the rocks beneath as well as they know their fields! Posted on 05 Jun, 2014 03:46 PM

The fourteen women and three men were rapt as Pan-'da' explained the intricacies of Himalayan geology. Every now and then, a question would be asked. Pan-'da' would then create an impromptu geological model using a notebook or a whiteboard eraser to explain the concepts. This was essential because the audience had no prior background in geology. Only some of them were even literate.

Pan Singh explains the use of a clinometer
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