How a Marathwada village came out of water crisis
Remember the Satyamev Jayate Water Cup, a yearly competition that celebrity couple Aamir Khan and Kiran Rao started in Maharashtra in 2016? The task was to engage villages in soil and water conservation activities, which would thereby tackle the problem of drought the state is prone to. The village of Warapgaon in the drought-hit Marathwada region had participated twice in the competition — in 2017 and then in 2018. While it did not win either year, it has gone on to become a water-sufficient village, which is a big win in itself given that it battled scarcity for decades.
It was only a few years ago, in 2015, that Warapgaon village — located in Beed district’s Ambajogai taluka — was in the grip of a deadly drought. Residents either had to walk long distances to fetch water or were dependent on tankers. That year, Beed recorded only 297 mm of rainfall while the state average stood at 678 mm.
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