Awards & Achievements

Achievements

This is about RAJENDRA SINGH of Tarun Bharat Sangh whose stupendous achievements in the domain of community service make him a natural candidate for all national and inter-national awards

Watershed work

His main contribution has been in the field of Rain-water Harvesting in the province of Rajasthan which comprises of a 6th of the entire area of the Indian sub-continent.

This is one of the poorest states of the country with people living in abject penury. In 1985 the lot of the people of Alwar district was particularly pitiable. The land had withstood three years of continuous drought. This area had been declared BLACK ZONE by the govt. meaning that it had no underground water and that it could never be revived. There was tremendous scarcity of drinking water, no fodder for cattle who were dying in large numbers, forest cover and greenery had long since perished. People had lost all self confidence in themselves as well as the govt. organizations who were ostensibly there to help. There was wholesale exodus of villagers to urban areas in search of livelihood.

In such a devastatingly depressing scenario entered Rajendra Singh, armed with nothing but the spirit of selfless-service and an overwhelming dedication to improving the lot of his fellow beings. He began by digging a shallow well all by himself for 6 months. The villagers slowly started believing in him and once they joined hands, there was no turning back. Today, 16 years after the work first began a total transformation of the region has taken place. Below are enumerated some of their achievements.

• Water shed work has been undertaken in 850 villages. Of these, 90 have been made drought-proof. This means, that even if these villages receive less than 3 inches of rain per annum they will face none of the hardships of drought. The only awareness that they will need to have is not to take crops which consume too much water and not to waste any water.

• By June 2002, another 111 villages out of the 850 will also become drought-proof, thus taking the total to 201. This is clearly the only example of its kind in the whole world.

• Five dry river basins are now nurtured by perennially flowing rivers with aquatic- life abounding in them.

• The average water level in these areas was 200ft. Now it is 20ft. Because of the earth getting saturated with recharge water.

To illustrate the effect of recharge, we site the miraculous example of… VILLAGE NIMBI

In the year 1994, at a meager cost of Rs.500,000/- two mud dams were built in this region which had been in the grip of famine for 94 years. The desolate populace was either engaged in making illicit liquor or had migrated to cities in search of livelihood. The water body that was created by the first rains has not dried since then. When these two unpretentious dams were constructed nobody thought that this would witness the biggest miracle in the history of agriculture. There is a 3 km. belt of intensive vegetable cultivation with not a single drop of irrigation .How has this come about? The land is saturated and water is accessed at 2ft The villagers dug trenches and sowed seeds of melon, watermelon, bitter gourd and cucumbers etc. Today the annual turnover of this village is Rs.30,000,000/- This is a classic example of drought-proofing for this is the third year of drought in this area.

The Impact

• In 1985 more than 80% of the area faced erosion. Now it is 5%. Forest cover has increased from12% to 50

• Earlier farmers were taking a maximum of 2 crops and that also mostly millets and gram etc. Now they take wheat, barley, even sugarcane, pulses and, additionally vegetables in the late winter sowing season

• Earlier, 80% men in 17-40 age group were migrating for livelihood. Now all stay in their villages and cultivate their land

• Girls are going to school, many of which have been facilitated by Tarun Bharat Sangh. Women have got out of their shell. They have become entrepreneurs and are taking leadership roles in society

• Having taken care of their fields, the men, following the example of Rajendra Singh set forth on foot, going from village to village, inspiring others to help themselves by creating their own water shed constructions.

• A major contribution of TBS has been to build unparalleled confidence in the villagers All their projects are of the people, for the people and by the people. They participate at every step of the activity with the result that they become very well informed are competent enough to question even the govt. officers why their projects are costing so much more

• The Gandhi dream of making the villages self-sufficient is at last being realized under the able guidance of TBS.Each villager has made its own committee which decides what new construction or repair is needed. They solve their own disputes without going to court, sometimes seeking the help of TBS

• They store a part of their produce to use in times of emergency

• Flash floods on longer cause havoc where TBS has undertaken watershed work

• It is no wonder that over 50,000 people from organizations or in their individual capacities visit the region each year to learn from them and to witness how Nature starts supporting when the intention is completely selfless.