|
Please Click here for a 2006 project update
(Use the Back button on your browser to return to this spot)
Success stories
21 beries were desilted in village Khidrat and Kishmeri with the IFA funds. Beris are shallow percolation wells, constructed in the bed of the ponds for supply of drinking water after the pond has gone dry. The main requirement for their construction is that the under sub-soil strata must have a particular soil locally known as chami, this soil prevents percolation of water into deep layers. Each beri is about 30 - 40 ft. deep from the ground surface, very narrow in the beginning but has 50ft. diameter and stores about 100,000 liters of rain water.These are an indigenous technological heritage of the Thar region and have been supporting the villages for centuries. Eventually they get filled with silt which percolates along with the water and as a result the capacity of beries decreases considerably. Therefore they need to be desilted from time to time. Of the 150 Beries in Khidrat and 30 in Kishmeri most are filled up with silt.
GRAVIS worked on those belonging to the poorer people with focus on lower caste groups. Preference was given to these Beries which are of 4 -7 families. It is estimated that each benefits about 5 families. The cost of renovating a Beri was around Rs. 5000/- out of which around Rs. 2000/- was mobilized from the beneficiaries.
Construction of 15 khadins was carried out with IFA funds in Jodhpur district. Khadins are rainwater intercepting bunds of 4 – 5ft height built around the agricultural land. They help in retaining the moisture of the soil inside the field for a longer duration than usual. This gives the farmers ample time to plough the fields after rains.
|