Youth clean ponds to tide over scarcity

MUMBAI: While nearly 28,000 villages in Maharashtra are facing a drought, youngsters in Vasai have begun cleaning ponds to address water scarcity. An organization, Jagruk Nagrik Sanstha, and the alumni of New English School, Vasai, joined hands to remove dirt from a pond in Kumbarwadi, Mulgaon village.
The village pond, which supplies water for farming activities, dried up in March itself.Villagers realized the need to tidy up the pond so that more water percolates down in the ground. Since a large portion of the village falls under the gram panchayat’s jurisdiction, the inhabitants have to depend on water bodies.
Youngsters armed with spades and shovels, spend around two hours clearing muck and debris. “The pond has not been cleaned since 1956. Imagine the amount of muck that had collected leaving little space for water to accumulate,” said Dhiraj Mhatre, a software professional. While the youngsters get back to their white-collar jobs during the week, labourers carry on the work. After the clean-up, the Kumbarwadi pond will be able to stock eight to ten lakh litres of water. There are over 2,500 ponds, mostly privately owned, in the region. Almost every village has around five to six ponds that supply water for farming. Most villagers are hoping for a good monsoon to replenish the stock.
As news of the pond-cleaning campaign spread, other residents in other villages too rolled up their sleeves to tidy up water bodies ahead of the monsoon. “We will try to clean up some more ponds so that next year water lasts till June-July (post monsoon),” said Chinmay Gavankar, a resident of Vasaigaon. In Gavankar’s village, locals have pooled in money to clean the pond. In Giriz village too, the work of cleansing a pond will commence soon.
While cleaning the pond is a Herculean task, the youngsters are faced with the dilemma of disposing the muck. “The district government officers should give us permission to carry the muck in trucks and dispose it, without having to pay the royalty levy,” said Prashant Mhatre, an engineer.
The Vasai-Virar Municipal Corporation has urged villagers to come together and spruce up the water bodies. The municipality has cleaned around 22 wells in the region to address water scarcity.