Janki Bai, a sexagenarian from Silpuri village, watched with wonder as muddy water flowed over retaining wall-like structure standing across the river basin. “Till recently, this place was totally dry. I remember when some years ago the river flowed well here, but off late, it has dried out. It is wonderful to see it assume the original form again,” said Janki Bai, who rode pillion with a male relative from her village about a km away to witness the scene.
Janki was standing on the bank of River Gaur—a tributary of River Narmada—at Padwar (Gaur) village of Kundam block in Madhya Pradesh's Jabalpur district. The filled up river basin that amused Janki is the result of a gabion check dam that has been constructed across the river at Padwar within just a matter of nine days. In an effort, initiated and personally participated in by Jabalpur MP and Madhya Pradesh BJP Chief Rakesh Singh, the residents of several villages in the vicinity pitched in with manual labour and the required machinery to complete the structure in record time.
A gabion dam is a structure made up of box, cylinders and in this case sacks full of boulders, gravel, sand and soil stacked together across the river and fixed with wire meshes. The structure allows water to flow over and seep through during full flow and then store water when the flow reduces by natural plugging of the gaps between boulders by flowing soil and aqua-fauna (leafs, grass, plants, etc).
Though the effort was initiated earlier, upon its completion, the structure has become the first example of community effort for water conservation as pitched by Prime Minister Narendra Modi during his first ‘Mann ki Baat’ on June 30.
The Gabion dam structure constructed at Padwar in Jabalpur, Madhya Pradesh | Ravindra Vishwakarma
The construction of the small dam on River Gaur started on June 24 and was completed on July 2. On July 6, the 68-m long and 3.2-m high dam was inaugurated by Union Jal Shakti minister Gajendra Singh Shekhawat.
It had rained for two days before that and the gabion dam had managed to create a backwater reservoir of about one-km length and was flowing full-breadth downstream, giving life to the almost dead river.
The minister praised the effort and said the ‘jal andolan’ (water movement) would be successful only when it becomes a ‘jan andolan’ (people’s movement). “Water is a huge problem for us. We have to carry it on bicycles and other vehicles from this perennial gomukh (a natural spring source) here to fulfill our needs,” said Chhotelal Lodhi, of Bilagda village, situated about a km from the Padwar structure.
Janki Bai added that a few years ago, Gaur river had enough water flowing while passing through Padwar and the open dug wells and bore wells in the area were spewing enough water. But things changed over the last decade as the river dried up and the water levels plunged.
“Ground water levels have plunged to as low as 500 feet, turning the land barren, in the 199 villages of the Kundam block. We are in dire straits and this community effort that is showing results with the first spell of good rain is likely to serve as a good example for people to make community efforts for water conservation,” said Satish Awasthi of Imlai village.
BJP MP Rakesh Singh looked like a proud father on the day of the formal inauguration of the dam. “Look at what a good thought and community effort can do,” he said, pointing at the fully flowing river.
The BJP chief made it clear that this was a total non-political initiative and part of his water conservation efforts that started about a decade ago. “I was visiting my aunt’s place in Mandla district after quite some gap in 2010 when I found a hand pump in their courtyard. I asked what happened to the big well in the village and was told it had dried up. The villagers were almost proud to share that now they have several hand pumps working instead. I understood that the importance of water conservation was totally passing by the people and decided to do something about it,” Singh shared.
The three-time MP then took up a ‘Jal Raksha Yatra’ (water conservation campaign) in 2011, which led to rejuvenation of an ancient pond—Sangram Sagar—in Jabalpur and contour trenching for water conservation at Jodhpur ki Pahadi on the outskirts of the city.
“My attention was drawn to drying Gaur river during my visits to a traditional fair held near Gomukh of Padwar. I decided to do something about it, held a workshop in which water conservationist and Padmashri awardee Mahesh Sharma was present, talked to the community and you can see the result,” Singh explained.
Sharma, who was also present for the inauguration of the dam, said the dam was built well and was showing results because people did not do mindless labour for it, but actually worked with their hearts. He said the structure would not only revive the drying river by holding monsoon water, but will help recharge groundwater in a huge area in the catchment in the long run.
Bela Bai of Bilagda, who worked on the dam, said though a part of the structure (the upper crust of soil and gravel) looked washed off, the main structure was holding well and she hoped it would help resolve the water problem in the area.
