Yakub from Taoru block, Nuh district, Haryana, has four acres of farmlands and a ten-member family. His occupation is agriculture and allied activities. Yakub is a progressive and hardworking farmer, but his agriculture outputs remained limited due to continuously decreasing groundwater level, making his bore well defunct. The absence of any other form of irrigation made him largely dependent on the groundwater, which forced him to create a second bore well. But due to the overall decreased groundwater level in the area, the second bore still did not provide sufficient water to his farmlands. Apart from this, during rainy season, water from the nearby Aravali mountains flows downhill and accumulates in his agricultural fields, which damages his crops.
In April 2021, a CSR supported project implemented by S M Sehgal Foundation started in his village. As a part of this initiative, after careful scrutiny of the location of Yakub’s bore well and the catchment area, the team informed him of the process of rejuvenating his bore well. Yakub took charge and dug a small pond in his farmland for accumulation of rainwater, which would gradually enter the bore well. A pre-filtration pit was created adjacent to the bore well so that water would travel through this pit to the well, which was filled with locally available materials, including big and small boulders, pebbles, and sand for filtration purposes. In addition, small holes were drilled into the bore well’s pipe and covered with a nylon mesh. Water could pass through these filtration stages and then gradually recharge the groundwater.
Yakub’s bore well, having the depth of 450 feet and having a groundwater level at approximately 180 feet, was rejuvenated in July 2021. During the rainy season in August and September 2021, large quantities of rainwater from the catchment area percolated inside the bore well. The pond is still full of water that is gradually infiltrating the bore well. This action also saved his farmlands from getting waterlogged and thus destroying the crops. Yakub is excited about adopting the intervention of bore well recharge in his agriculture field. He happily says, ‘‘I am hopeful that my rejuvenated bore well will repeatedly recharge the groundwater, and will also help in recharge of all defunct bore wells within a radius of 200 300 meters.”
Author: Debika Goswami
(Debika is senior program lead, Local Participation and Sustainability, with S M Sehgal Foundation)
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