recent developments

We went to Bhojpur on the 2nd of August.Despite the best monsoon in 6 years the village still faces tremendous water shortage.

The village has over 80 wells but only 2 with potable water.The rest are contaminated with flouride and organic matter.These 2 wells are located close to the pond.

There are about 70 houses in Bhojpur and has a total population of about 700.

The water consumption varies from 300 L for a family of 7-8 and 500 L for a family of 25 per day.

Bhojpur now has continuous electricity supply.

The main crops cultivated are Jowar,Bajra,Moong(Lentil seeds),Beans and Groundnuts.However,agriculture is almost non-prevalent during most part of the year because of the minimal rainfall and the contaminated groundwater.

We visited Nathuramji,one of Bhojpur's representatives in the panchayat and we discussed the water shortage issues.

One of the main problems faced by the villagers is flourosis and we gathered from Nathuramji that a Jaipur based NGO is already working towards installation of domestic flouride filters.

We also came across a resident of Chirasda, a village thats 3 km away from Bhojpur.This village has no electricity at all and all the wells contain non-potable water which is being consumed by the villagers as such.Hence,most of them suffer from fluorosis.

While few of us stayed back at Bhojpur to collect the soil and water samples,survey the land and speak to the villagers the rest visited The Barefoot College,Tilonia ,which is an alternative, community-based learning centre that trains rural citizens in the practical training programs for solar engineering, rainwater harvesting, computer programming, midwifery and even photography, to get the details of rainwater harvesting and water management.

We've basically decided to divide the project into different modules assigning a few of us to each module.

1. Conventional rooftop rainwater harvesting in the school building and the pucca houses.
2. Recharge of groundwater using sandpits and control of evaporation.
3. Treatment of contaminated well water and installation of domestic filters.

Apart from these we were thinking of a business plan wherein we work towards the betterment of the people of Bhojpur as a whole and ensuring a means of livelihood(handicrafts,vermi- composting etc) and thus financial security.

One of the UNDP goals that we would like to stress on is women empowerment.Though our main focus is on water management, we would like to integrate the empowerment of women with it.

We intend to get the samples that we collected analysed by the GSI(Geological Survey of India) and have started looking out for foreign universities to partner with.