From water conservation, the focus has shifted to farm irrigation.
At the height of the June summer in Madhya Pradesh, Mannubai Chamariya heaved boulders from the banks of a dry stream to a site where other workers arranged them in a tiled wall, filling the gaps with cement.
The work was arduous but Chamariya and the others did not mind it.
They were building a small check dam in the hope that it would bring water to their parched fields – and prosperity to their lives.
“Normally this nala [stream] is full only during the monsoon,” said Chamariya, a woman in her 40s who lives in Sangvi village in Bhikangaon block and grows cotton and soyabean in its black loamy soils. “But this dam will help us get water even in the other seasons.”
Such dams usually have sluices or metal gates that can be opened to allow the flow of excess water when the stream is full.
“The gates help silt to flow out with the water,” said Radheshyam Patel, an agricultural engineer with Samaj Pragati Sahayog, the non-profit organisation that is helping the villagers build the dam. “Without them, streams get clogged with siltation and their water storage capacity reduces very quickly.”
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