This is a unique story of how self-sustaining wells from top of a mountain, blessing a large population of tribal villages down the hills, giving them new mornings and new hopes.

When we reached up to the peak the things unfolded telling us what pain must have been taken by locals to tame the hostile terrain to bring change in their lives.

Gasping for water for generations

There is an encouraging tale of self sustenance in a remote hilly village called Samundokado in Gajapati district of Odisha carved on the foothills where people have been craving for water for few generations.

 A nondescript village of over 32 households  Samundokado has a population of about 175 where water had remained a dream for years. The women folk had to climb up about five hundred meters up another small hillock where they used to fetch head loads of water in pitchers for everything; water for drinking, bathing and other requirements day long.

Painfully, this exercise the women had to go through twice a day, rain or shine, for their basic needs. Given the situation, water for other things like growing any crop had remained like chasing a chimera till recent times.

‘Faith can move mountains’ but in the case of  Samundokado it was just perseverance of the villagers and the moral support from an organisation that made the mountain to rain solace and sustenance rewarding the villagers with a new morning in life.

With the expertise of Institute of Social Action and Research Activities (ISARA),the people of  Samundokado, could conquer the peak from where a natural water stream was flowing and getting waywardly flown down to merge with a small rivulet in the wilderness.

People amped up their energy to reach at the peak about 1000 meters from the sea level, from where water was welling out and taped it through long pipes and down the hills and water was driven into an intake tank 50 mtrs just above the village.     

Scorching fields smile green

From trickle to gush, and that spread smiles as the women and men of this village enjoyed the gurgling water flowing down into the barren lands and slowly transformed them to become bosoms of cultivation and self-reliance once harvested.

“ We faced lot of problems and it was so difficult to climb up a hillock nearby to extract water from a small aquifers, take bath there and climb down with pitchers of waters on our heads and shoulders”, said Semika, a village woman, talking to this reporter and added “but now we are a lot relieved once water reached our door steps”.

The villagers are a tribal community and living with their conventional practices. Samundokado

The village is 110KM distance from district headquarter Paralakhemundi and 48 kms from block headquarters. Total household of the village is 32 with a total population of around 176 where male comprises 86 male and female 90.   

Institute of Social Action and Research Activities (ISARA) has played the major motivator role to encourage the villagers, who till recent times were migrating to other states, are now a relieved lot.

“ We are just facilitators and the daunting task was how to motivate the villagers, both male and female, to take up the challenge for self-reliance once the spring water from the mountain top could be tapped through a simple technique which although appears easy but it requires so much of hard work and painstakingly “ said Rabindra Nath Patra, Secretary of ISARA and the soul behind the concepts.

Once the spring water from the mountain was sourced in through pipes and stored in the Intake well, from there through several outlet pipes at the bottom water was released into several areas that were completely scorched and then the results were visibly encouraging.

What is significant is that now the villagers themselves do the water management etc and buy pipes themselves for expansion of water distribution or irrigation. Rain or shine, nature was within their control as long as the stream from the mountain top flowed down.

The spruce green look that the village lands now wear speaks a lot about a revolution in the making by people of Samundokoda and Guruda.

The Spring Water Harvesting System here covered 2 villages -Guruda and Samundokado village. Total Length is 2000 meter. Distribution pipe line is 1500 meter.

One needs to see to believe that, area covered through the Spring Water Harvesting System is as vast as; Kharif 40-acre Rabi 40-acre and in Summer comes down to 15 acres.

The production of vegetables, paddy, millets, cereal and other products including organically grown ‘papeya’ and jackfruit do enjoy an enviable unique selling point in local markets also.

One cannot stop but appreciate the uphill struggle undertaken by the motivators like ISARA and the story of spring water harvesting is not limited to Samundokoda or Guruda but there are 31 such Spring Water Harvesting initiatives across Gajapati district  that has changed the lives of people who otherwise were going out to other states as Migrant labourers, in distress.

“Migration has nearly stopped except in very rare cases. Now we no more go out for outside labour as we have all ,from Khariff to Rabi and many other products that fetch us money for our needs” said a woman Sevati, from Samundokado, talking to NYOOOZ.com

There were times when open defecation was almost everywhere in these areas but now with water from mountain top becoming perennial many households have constructed toilets and bathrooms with their own efforts which is a turning point in their lives.

“But, under Swachh Bharat scheme, although the NDA government had promised a package of Rs 12,000 once toilets are built but so far not a penny has come to us” said a frustrated Anam, one villager of Guruda talking to this reporter.   

Efforts are not limited to one or two villages as described earlier but, motivation by ISARA has been successful to initiate and succeeded in mountain Spring Water Harvesting in over 30 villages in Gajapati district that benefits over 6000 population where over 900 acres of Kharif grow while during the Summer, Rabi declines a bit down to 300 acres.

One cannot ignore the impetus offered by Memonite Central Committee for these projects those have been a real game changer.   

New smiles on the face each villager speaks about a kind of revolution that took years to become a reality.

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