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Paani Foundation: - Rushikesh Desai

Paani Foundation is a non-profit organization in Maharashtra that works to spread awareness about watershed management and drought prevention. It was founded in 2006 by Amir Khan and Kiran Rao to create a people's movement and mobilize villages to tackle drought and water issues. Many districts in Maharashtra are drought-prone due to erratic rainfall and overuse of groundwater resources. Paani Foundation teaches local communities scientific water conservation and management methods to solve water scarcity problems.

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238 views3 pages

Paani Foundation: - Rushikesh Desai

Paani Foundation is a non-profit organization in Maharashtra that works to spread awareness about watershed management and drought prevention. It was founded in 2006 by Amir Khan and Kiran Rao to create a people's movement and mobilize villages to tackle drought and water issues. Many districts in Maharashtra are drought-prone due to erratic rainfall and overuse of groundwater resources. Paani Foundation teaches local communities scientific water conservation and management methods to solve water scarcity problems.

Uploaded by

Rushikesh
Copyright
© © All Rights Reserved
We take content rights seriously. If you suspect this is your content, claim it here.
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Download as PDF, TXT or read online on Scribd
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Paani Foundation

- Rushikesh Desai

Paani Foundation is a non – governmental, non – profit organization working


in the field of drought prevention and watershed management in Maharashtra. It
was founded by Amir Khan and Kiran Rao in 2006. Its aim is to spread awareness
about watershed management, groundwater replenishment, and proper cropping
pattern by creating a people’s movement to tackle drought by mobilizing, training
and motivating villages to lead this fight. This movement is based on the principle
of shramdaan.

Many districts of Maharashtra are drought prone. Man and Khatav talukas of
Satara district are considered as the one of the driest places in India. Rainfall has
been erratic which has led to overuse of bore wells and the groundwater has
been falling as a result. Moreover, crops like sugarcane are cultivated in some
places though the area under irrigation is very less. It is not just a natural
calamity. It is a crisis largely caused by humans – by poor management of water
and rapid destruction of nature.

The scientific solutions to eradicating this crisis can be found in methods of


water conservation, water management and environment restoration. These are
well-known solutions, propagated by experts for years. However, the primary
barrier to implementing these on scale lies in deep-rooted social fractures.
Divides of caste, religion, political affiliations and gender have prevented
communities from owning this issue and finding purpose in solving it together.
Case Study

Wagholi is a typical village in the Western Maharashtra region with


mountainous region and good clayey soils. The rainfall is very low of around
300mm and there was lack in yield of rabi crops due to deficiency in rainfall. In
the last few years there has been uncertainty in the rainfall and from the years
2015 to year 2018 there was very little rainfall. Due to this problem migration rate
was extremely increased in village. The entire economy of the village is only
dependent upon yield from agriculture because more than 85% population of the
village is engaged in agriculture. Due to insufficient rainfall 10 to 15% population
migrated according to 2011's population and the latest survey done by Gram
Panchayat Wagholi. Thus, the main problems faced by the village are - I) harvest
rabi and cash crops. II) drinking water security, especially at the top of hills where
around 40% of population stays. Through Paani foundation the problems
regarding the scarcity of water in dry period is resolved. Firstly, a water budget for
the village is prepared. Some farmers reported cropping pattern change due to
village lake and they are now able to harvest cash crops like grapes, cucumber,
watermelon etc. The runoff generated is arrested in the deepened streams and
recharges nearby wells till for next 3-4 months. Thus, farmers are able to provide
protective irrigation to rabi crops. There is active participation of the villagers was
observed in construction of contour nala bund, closed contour trenches, earthen
nala bund, farm pond.

Velu village

Paani foundation holds a competition called as the water cup. Velu village is
the winner of this cup in 2018. This competition is held over 45 days. Velu was a
drought prone village known for farmer suicides. Agriculture was in shambles.
There was factionalism among villagers. Five villagers were trained initially by
Paani Foundation in different methods of water harvesting. They were able to
mobilize other villagers in this effort to bring change. Looking at the positive
changes brought about in some neighboring villages all the villagers eventually
came together, thus, ending the water scarcity in the village.

Such stories should become an inspiration for everyone to work together in


unity to solve the challenges facing humanity. Maybe the answer to climate
change also lies in these tiny steps.

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