Ibrahimpur ready to harvest rainwater

Siddipet: Having achieved nationwide recognition for implementing rainwater harvesting methods, Ibrahimpur village is all set to reap rich benefits this monsoon from its yet another innovative idea. Villagers have come up with a unique and simple rainwater harvesting technique by digging ‘boundary trenches’ on the periphery of their cultivable lands.

Come monsoon, rainwater would be collected in these trenches, preventing it from flowing away from the farm lands. As a result, water would be retained in the fields and groundwater level would rise. The village has already received Nirmal Gram Puraskar in 2013 and has recently won a national award for sanitation.

Besides its sustainable development, the village in Siddipet mandal has earned accolades for becoming mosquito-free village. Another feather in its cap is its growing green cover as a result of planting 42,000 saplings during last Haritha Haram programme.

Using funds from Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Scheme (MGNREGS), the villagers have dug-up boundary trenches covering 500 acres out of the total 700 acres of cultivable land in their village.

They plan to complete the remaining 200 acres by the end of June. Nearly 7,100 metres of trenches have been dug until now. The trenches are 1 metre deep, 1 metre wide and 5 metres long.

There is a half metre gap left between the trenches and the boundary of the farm, so that soil dug out can be used to construct bunds on the boundary. Between trenches, again a gap is left so that saplings could be planted there.

Custard apple, date palms and eucalyptus trees would be planted on these bunds as part of Haritha Haram this year, which is scheduled to begin this week. According to Romala Raju, MGNREGS field Assistant of Ibrahimpur, a rainfed crop which needs water once in ten days to grow, can now survive for 30 days without rain, due to the moisture which could be retained in the soil for several days.

In addition to that, he says that the trees planted on the bunds would get water from the moist soil and would not need additional watering and maintenance.

The villagers are planning to plant 2,10,000 saplings this year as part of Haritha Haram. Out of the 180 farmers, each villager has taken vow to plant and take care of 70 saplings. The villagers are planning to plant 12,600 custard apple, 30,000 decorative, 30,000 bamboo, eucalyptus and teak saplings, besides other varieties.

The phrase ‘clean and green’ holds true to the village, as there is no trace of litter all around. The villagers have developed a beautiful park in a wasteland. They are also planting bamboos up to a kilometre on both sides of a local stream which flows through the village.

By using MGNREGS, 120 families were able to get 150 days of work and 100 families were able to get 75 to 100 days of work, with average pay amounting to Rs 142 per day, as per the data given by Raju.

A garbage dump yard was constructed recently in the village, where wet and dry garbage would be separated. There is a plan to make organic manure from the waste.

The manure would be put up for sale and the returns would go into the coffers of the gram panchayat. The dump yard would generate employment for three persons. One for collecting garbage while the other two would segregate and prepare manure.

“Our goal is to reach a point where every person in the village should be able to earn Rs 15,000 per month,” said Peddala Raju, the village guide, who takes curious visitors around the village explaining their success story.

Though the clean and green developmental initiative was the brainchild of the villagers, they all feel that without support from their Sarpanch and without the administrative and financial support they've been getting from Irrigation Minister T Harish Rao, who has adopted the village; their developmental story would not have been written so soon.

By:Vivek Bhoomi