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Working Wonders Green Man Cometh Laxman Singh's indigenous technique ensures every drop of rainwater is preserved in the earth's womb Avijit Ghosh | TNN Lapodia (Rajasthan): The rainfall was scanty in Lapodia last year. The three huge village ponds, each rather aesthetically named Annasagar, Devsagar and Phoolsagar, have run dry. But this sun-baked hamlet located about 80 kilometres south-west of Jaipur is neither organising yagnas to propitiate the parched earth nor demanding extra water tankers. Few, if any, leave for Jaipur in search of jobs. Unlike other villages in the vicinity, Lapodia wells are also filled with water. The fields brim with leafy greens, spinach and methi, and vegetables like tomatoes and radish. Every family keeps a separate plot to grow fresh green fodder for the livestock. The village sells 1,600 litres of milk every day. Crowded with trees - neem, peepal, palm, kair and desi babool - the hamlet bristles with the sound of hundreds of birds only a birdwatcher can identify. It is almost like a bird sanctuary. Lapodia isn't blessed by the gods. The marvel is the handiwork of Laxman Singh, a villager who never to college but has harnessed everyday experience and traditional knowledge to develop a system of water conservation called "chauka" - a complex grid of small embankments that helps preserves every drop both above the ground and below it. Long after the water above has been either consumed or dried up, the underground water remains trapped in the womb of earth. This water ensures that the 103 village wells never run dry. Singh's native wisdom has attracted attention from far and wide. Two years ago, a delegation from parched Afghanistan came to the eastern Rajasthan village to understand his water conservation technique. The Madhya Pradesh government sent a study group. The Rajasthan government too is preparing a handbook on the Lapodia way. But, more importantly, many nearby villages - Mait, Chhapiyan and Itankhoi in Jaipur district and Balapura, Sailsagar and Keriya in Tonk, to name a few - have adopted the chauka system. "We are working in other villages too," says the 51-yearold who also runs his own NGO, Gram Vikas Navyuvak Mandal. The village of 200 families wasn't always like this. Lapodia literally means crazy people, a dubious tag that the hamlet earned for its perpetually scuffling residents. Singh says that as a child he carried those words like a cross on his back. "I wanted to change the way people spoke about my village," says Singh, whose father was a zamindar. One day while traveling through Parle, a village in nearby Tonk district, he came across a bund (a pattern of mud walls). The area around the bund was green. "This is where the seeds of chauka system were sown in my mind," says Singh. Over the next few years, he kept observing the ecology around the bund and developed his technique of water conservation. The basic framework was simple: The rainwater sucked into the earth doesn't evaporate. And, if trapped, can be used as and when needed. So every drop must be preserved below the ground. Laxman started working on the idea. "I went to district officials for help. But they laughed at me and said, 'This is not possible. Which college did you go to?'" By 1994, Singh had developed the chauka model. The dividend is visible. To the naked eye, the meadow looks dry but it is full of small grass that cattle graze on and numerous trees. And though rainfall has been erratic in the past eight years, the wells are full. By common consent, the village has agreed to cultivate only 50% of their land. Similarly, the wells are used for irrigation only in the morning. "We must take from nature what she can naturally provide. If you take more by force, nature will not be able to replenish itself," says Singh. And so the birds chirp without fear in Lapodia. And the fields remain green. Laxman Singh explains a point about conservation to fellow farmers URL : http://epaper.timesofindia.com/Repository/ml.asp?Ref=VE9JTS8yMDA3LzAxLzE4I0FyMDAyMDI=&Mode=HTML&Locale=english-skin-custom |
| Also see : Environment, Environment : News Articles, Water, Water : News Articles |
