Babita Rajput came up with an idea of water conservation which transformed the lives of villagers in the Bundelkhand region.
Struggling from the water crisis in Madhya Pradesh’s Bundelkhand region, where women would travel many kilometres to get water for their household consumption, a young resident of the village, Babita Rajput, came up with an idea of water conservation which transformed the lives of her villagers.
Now 23 years old, when Rajput started her struggle to make her village water sufficient, she was only 19. She said, “When I started telling people that we should do something about the water scarcity, they would say ‘you are still small, what would you do?” Rajput added: “When I would tell any elder, he would say ‘when we are not able to do anything about the water crisis, what would you do about it’.”
But Rajput remained undeterred by the discouraging responses from the people around her. She found her way when Parmarth Samaj Sevi Sansthan, which is a grassroots organization dedicated to water crisis mitigation in water stressed Bundelkhand region of UP & MP, had approached the villagers and said the water crisis in the region can end only if they are able to conserve rain water.
Popularly known as Bundelkhand sukha (dry Bundelkhand), on seeing the unending struggles getting bigger, Rajput wanted to do something. Rajput took guide from the organisation and started setting up her idea to draw out a bigger plan in order to implement it. “At first, I was able to gather around 8 women. I told them all the necessary things on how we should go about it. Then we started making ‘Bori Bandhan’ (a desi jugaad to develop a makeshift dam) at several places for water conservation.”
She further added, “And because of this, the water level in our wells increased. It was enough to wash our clothes, to take bath and provide for animals and birds to drink from it. After seeing it with their own eyes, people in the village started saying that our problems of water crisis can end.”
However that’s not it. Rajput also initiated a movement to cut mountain up to 108 metres so that the water which went through tributaries into the Bachedi river was redirected into the water scarce region of their villages. It took around 300 men and women, who laboured for one year and six months to get the work done fully. “There was this idea that if our ponds are filled up to the brim, our water needs would be met. But the water would travel on the other side of mountain into Bachedi,” Rajput said. The work on the mountain started in 2019 and ended in 2020.
“In 2020, many workers lost their work. When they came back to Bundelkhand, they also started working on it which really helped. Since our community is poor, they would work on it when they had no work.”
The result had lifted the moods of villagers as the wells and all other water bodies in the region had seen drastic change. Rajput said, “Before, we used to have our ponds filled with 40% water; now they are up above 80%. In March and April, we used to have no water, now we have sufficient water. Moreover, the ground water level saw a considerable rise.”
She said, “Actually, we have been working with these women for society uplift, so that women like us don’t suffer. They have proper education. When they had to travel multiple kilometres to get water, they would often miss out on their schools.”
In addition to that, Rajput has more plans for more villages. There are more villages, she said, where women suffer a lot due to water scarcity. She doesn’t want other villagers to face problems like she has. So her plans for the future are to work in 75 gram panchayats and replicate the model. “I will make people understand the importance of water. Those who have water available, use it without restraint. They also waste a lot of water. We are thinking about ways of recycling water, so that our ground water level will increase so that our water problem can be solved.”