Villages like Hiware Bazar and Pulkoti have managed to escape the wrath of drought even after being in the heart of the drought-prone area in Maharashtra, in the same State and under the same governments. How is such a thing even possible?
Answers
Hiware Bazar is a village in Maharashtra, approximately 250 Kms from Mumbai. One of the extraordinary things, about this village is that the people of this village have not raised call for a single water tanker since 1995 even though they are in the heart of drought region of Maharashtra.
Hiware bazaar utilizes the nature to escape from the severe water scarcity when all the other villages are rolling and fighting with water scarcity. After fighting with severe drought in early 90s, the villagers of Hiware Bazaar came up with an idea to conserve water wherever it is possible. Now the entire village become self reliant for water. It has been estimated that the ground water level has been raised to 120 ft from 80 since 1995.
According to the villagers, "it is lack of vision and discipline that brings scarcity and droughts".
Some of the techniques that the villages made compulsory are
- No borewells for farming.
- Save water from the seasonal rainfall all time.
- Made drip irrigation compulsory.
- Water consuming plants like sugarcane are banned from the premises. Instead of that they planted low water consuming plants like flowering plants and fruit plants.
- Planting trees made compulsory and deforestation is completely banned.
- Keep dairy farms as a backup.
- It is prohibited to sell lands to outsiders.