RANCHI: Prime Minister Narendra Modi has praised the Bori-bandh campaign in Jharkhand’s rebel-hit Khunti district during his ‘Mann ki Baat’ on Sunday for setting up an example that how public participation brings positive change in the society. A detailed report on the initiative was published in ‘The Sunday Standard’ way back in January 2021.
Under this campaign, small dams are constructed by filling sand and soil in used cement bags that are kept on one atop the other to stop water from flowing into the local rivulets. This helps provide water for irrigation throughout the year and also maintains the water- table in the region.
“Khunti has become an attractive example of how public participation can bring positive changes in the society along with it,” said the Prime Minister in his ‘Mann ki Baat’. People in Khunti have found a way out to deal with the scarcity of water through the Bori-bandh campaign, which helps in retaining water in the rivers further enabling villagers to irrigate their fields and grow vegetables and improve their income, he added.
Notably, despite having numerous small rivers, rivulets and streams flowing through the region, most of the farmers in the region would only manage to grow kharif crops and suffer low irrigation efficiency due to a lack of adequate water supply till recently. But, the situation changed completely after 2019, after the district administration, in association with an NGO — Sewa Welfare Society — and the Gram Sabha, took an initiative to construct ‘bori bandh’ (low-cost check dams) across the region that can easily retain water for irrigation.
Interestingly, ‘Bori-bandh’ is purely managed through ‘shramdaan’ (voluntary donation of human resources through labour) and presently, there are more than 275 low-cost bori bandhs in the district.
Khunti Deputy Commissioner Shashi Ranjan said that PM Modi’s praise has given a boost to the morale of the villagers.
“Morale of the villagers has definitely been boosted after Prime Modi lauded this initiative in his Mann ki Baat,” said Ranjan. This is a perfect example for the people living in tribal areas as they can also bring social and economic changes by constructing bori-bandh through public participation, he added.
According to functionaries in the Sewa Welfare Society, the campaign has now taken the shape of a movement as people have started making bori-bandh on their own and have made more such check-dams than that made by the organization. The project has changed the lives of over 8,000 farmers living in more than 70 villages under Arki, Murhu, Khunti, Torpa and Karra Blocks of the Khunti district — by helping them grow crops around the year across thousands of acres, he said.
“As of now, more than 150 acres of land is being cultivated with the help of these small check-dams in the region, which is increasing day by day. Interestingly, after the check-dam was constructed on Banai River passing through Ganaloya and Gurmi village under Murhu block, several feet of water is retained in it throughout the year at a stretch of nearly 12 km, which is being used by the villagers for cultivation and other purposes,” said President of Sewa Welfare Society Ajay Sharma.
Due to these check-dams, the water table has also increased up to 5-6 meters in the region, which itself is a positive sign, he added.