For sustainable solutions

If you have been active on social media, you would not miss the buzz around the work of Pyaas Foundation of Belagavi and its most vocal founder, Dr Madhav Prabhu. If the foundation’s recent posts were about the plunging water tables and then about their massive tree plantation drive, their current posts have been gushing about the filling up of the Sulaga lake, their first major project towards sustainable provision of drinking water to water- starved villages around Belagavi.

With its unlikely but apt name, Pyaas Foundation is quenching the thirst of thousands of people around Belagavi city. Till recently, no one would have imagined that Belagavi district could be facing such acute water shortage.

For tangible results

“It all began in March 2016,” says Dr Madhav, “when Belagavi faced severe drought.” The WhatsApp group of friends from the class of 1996 of St Paul’s High School of which Dr Madhav is a member decided to act proactively. A day of thinking about what can be done resulted in the friends  pooling around Rs 70,000. The money was used to hire water tankers and supply water to the worst hit areas of Belagavi. However, the professionalism in them pushed them towards conducting a survey, so that resources could be utilised aptly. As they moved for the survey, they saw a woman standing in a queue for water from seven in the morning. To their dismay, she was still there at 12 in the noon. This triggered a thought that a more sustainable solution merits this problem.

The depth of Dr Madhav’s thought process is visible in the diagnostics of the problems and the urge to find long lasting solutions. The survey was conducted on a Saturday and by Monday, they were ready to supply water by tankers as the first step towards quenching thirst. Initially, they went house to house supplying water from a 4,000-litre tanker, with each home getting a fixed quantity of water. They did this for eight villages for three months. Soon, they realised that this solution would not be feasible in the long run and that they needed to think of a more sustainable alternative. This led to their efforts to revive village water sources. Their work begins by sourcing leads from government officials and media reports. The team then personally surveys the areas that are shortlisted. They came to know about a lake that used to exist at Prabhunagar near Khanapur, on a visit there. An old man mentioned about the lake whose land was being
planned to be sold as plots by the gram panchayat.

The members of Pyaas Foundation realised that the residents of Prabhunagar would severely be hit if the lone lake of the area vanishes. The foundation met the deputy commissioner (DC) and appealed to save the lake. The DC immediately asked the assistant commissioner to halt the process and permit Pyaas Foundation to go ahead with the lake rejuvenation work.

Working with zeal

The lake at Sulaga near Yellur is a good example of what a group of dedicated people can do. The team decided to desilt the lake which was filled with soil and rubbish. The two-acre lake was dug up with the help of JCB machines up to a depth of 25 feet. The result is that with the rains that the city has till date, the lake is fast filling.

Not only will this help provide water, it will also recharge the ground water table of the area in the long run. “This area was heavily neglected. The water level was down. The lone filter unit supplying water never really worked. Of the 20 to 30 borewells in the village, only one worked, that too an hour of water would be available after waiting for almost six hours for it. This year, thanks to the efforts of Pyaas Foundation, the lake already has about 30 feet of water,” says Aravind Patil, president of the Gram Panchayat at Sulaga.

What comes across when you look at the year and a half of the work done by Pyaas Foundation is the professional thought process, quick decisions and a zest for sustainable solutions. No wonder then that their next logical step was to ensure that the city actually got more rains that could fill up the lakes that they had set out to desilt. Thus, they started the tree plantation drives. This month, the foundation teamed up with several organisations and conducted a mega plantation drive where thousands of saplings were planted at over 250 locations across Belagavi city.

Dr Madhav has his plans all clearly chalked out. Future plans include recharging existing borewells, instead of digging new ones. To know more, visit www.pyaasfoundation.org.