qz.com : 23 Mar 2015
I© Reuters/Amit Dave : Water scarcity has begun early in India.
In 1985, a 28-year-old man from Uttar Pradesh quit his government job, left his family and arrived in the dead of the night at a small village in Rajasthan's Alwar district.
Rajendra Singh, along with four companions from the Tarun Bharat Sangh, a non-profit that traces its origins to the University of Rajasthan, wanted to work in the hinterland. The initial idea was to establish clinics.
In 1985, a 28-year-old man from Uttar Pradesh quit his government job, left his family and arrived in the dead of the night at a small village in Rajasthan's Alwar district.
Rajendra Singh, along with four companions from the Tarun Bharat Sangh, a non-profit that traces its origins to the University of Rajasthan, wanted to work in the hinterland. The initial idea was to establish clinics.
"Maybe it was some social chromosomes that fired my imagination to do something useful," Singh said in an interview. "I was a government servant in Jaipur, fed up with just sending statistics to officials." It look him a few months before finding his life's mission—and it took an ancient innovation, a fast disappearing traditional technology, to help him transform the lives of thousands of villagers in one of India's most arid regions.
© Tarun Bharat Sangh Singh has brought water back to some 1,000 villages.
© Tarun Bharat Sangh Singh has brought water back to some 1,000 villages.
On March 20, Singh was awarded the 2015 Stockholm Water Prize, sometimes described as the Nobel prize for water.
"Rajendra Singh did not insist with the clinics," the Stockholm International Water Institute, which awards the prize, said in a statement. "Instead, and with the help of the villagers, he set out to build johads, or traditional earthen dams. Two decades after Rajendra Singh arrived in Rajasthan, 8,600 johads and other structures to collect water had been built," it observed. "Water had been brought back to a 1,000 villages across the state."
"Rajendra Singh did not insist with the clinics," the Stockholm International Water Institute, which awards the prize, said in a statement. "Instead, and with the help of the villagers, he set out to build johads, or traditional earthen dams. Two decades after Rajendra Singh arrived in Rajasthan, 8,600 johads and other structures to collect water had been built," it observed. "Water had been brought back to a 1,000 villages across the state."
This article can be read in its entirety at : http://www.sott.net/article/294253-An-ancient-technology-is-helping-Indias-water-man-save-thousands-of-parched-villages
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