Lately many villages and districts all over the country are under drought threat whereas many are already facing the water crisis. Many districts in Maharashtra and the largest state of the country Rajasthan are facing drought-plagued like conditions. Government where on one hand is as usual makes promises but works slowly towards the cause. Unlike other villages which are waiting for the government help and nature to show some pity, there is a village that despite of anyone’s help is capable of fighting against the drought like conditions. The village named Hiware Bazar in the state of Maharashtra has set an example for all the other villages the way it fought against drought.
According to the reports, since 1995 the village has not called for any external help not even a water tanker despite of facing drought every single year. This village of Ahmednagar district which is situated approximately 250kms fro aamchi Mumbai is capable enough of solving its problems as the sarpanch of the village Popatrao Pawar, says, “It is lack of vision and discipline that brings about scarcity and drought.”
Under the guidance of the village sarpanch the residents worked towards various initiatives and methods which ultimately led them to adequate water access for every individual. The villagers together decided that no more borewells will be digge in the village and rather options like drip irrigation, sprinkler irrigation were to be used. By banning the tubewells they moved step by step towards water conservation. Not just this, they also changed their cultivation patterns by cultivating crops which required least amount of water like fruits, flowers, pulses, vegetables etc instead of sugarcanes, bananas etc.
Cattles too were banned from grazing anymore in the forest areas and the villagers grew more and more trees to bring rainfall and shed during summers for themselves and cattles and reportedly they planted more than 4.5 lakh trees preventing deforestation and moving a step ahead towards afforestation.
Their hard work and various efforts and initiative started showing fruitful results and the village currently is among one of the few completely independent for its water requirements in the country. Not just this, the villagers through their consistency have managed to bring up the ground level of the village miraculously from 80-120ft in 1995 to 15-40 ft in 2016.
The major relieve has been welcomed by the women of the village as they no more have to travel several kilometres to fetch water for their household purposes. Under the guidance of the smart Sarpanch Pawar, the hard work of the villagers and the initiatives towards water conservation has led them to get hold of praises from the Prime Minister Narendra Modi when he talked about the same in his radio programme ‘Mann Ki Baat’.
The village has certainly set an example for other such drought affected villages and its time that other villages of the country shall learn and walk on the footsteps of ‘Hiware Bazar’.
