In one year the small village of Gadrata, Rajasthan earned 0.15 Million US$
The secret: Rainwater Harvesting
Seekar, Rajasthan, India
This is the success story of the small village of Gadrata and its hamlets (overall about 50-55 families) in the Seekar district of Rajasthan and how water means gold!
A few years ago Smt. Amla Ruia, Chairperson of Aakar Charitable Trust and a resident of Mumbai, Maharashtra, motivated and supported the villagers of Gadrata to build a Check Dam to solve their water problems. Until that time groundwater levels in their wells were in serious decline. The Gadrata-Check Dam has produced fantastic results with wells, hand-pumps and ponds upto a range of 7-8 kms receiving recharge from the structure and groundwater-levels have increased significantly. Villagers had never grown vegetables before the construction of the check-dam, but in the year of 2008-2009 they earnt around Rs 9 Lakh (about 20,000 US$) from irrigating tomatoes, cauliflowers, onions, brinjals, gourd and other vegetables.
Benefits to the village because of the Check-Dam:
- Vegetables crops could be produced
- Wheat, Mustard, Millet and Fodder yield increased many times
- Diesel expenses decreased significantly as groundwater levels rose
Note: GRI was highly impressed by the work done by Aakar Charitable Trust thus the GRI team is making detailed reports on the rainwater-harvesting works and village economy development works of Aakar Charitable Trust in Rajasthan.
The detailed reports will be published in the coming Editions of GRI.
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