Naireeta Services Pvt. Ltd.

सामान्य जानकारी

Drought is a serious issue, particularly for underprivileged female farmers whose livelihood depends on the monsoon. Erratic rainfall leads to water logging in peak cropping season, due to ecological as well as anthropogenic causes. For the rest of the year, farmers experience severe water scarcity. But thanks to a life-changing technology, “Bhungroo” (awarded by World Bank Development Marketplace 2007 as India’s best innovative idea for poverty eradication & social change; in 2014 by UNFCCC as a Momentum for Change Lighthouse Activity), poor farmers are now converting crises into opportunities.

Bhungroo is a water management system that guarantees nearly 1 million liters of water to the poor small holders (off-season) towards irrigation of her crop; whereas in monsoon it injects excess runoff water from farmland and saves farmers’ standing crops. The excess runoff water is filtered and stored underground within cavities of subsoil such that smallholders can lift that water back as per her need. Adoption of this technology has decreased salt deposition on soil and increased fresh water supply, thus working as a disaster management and climate adaptation tool for the community.

Naireeta Services (a social enterprise) trains and empowers women to run and monitor Bhungroo following the Gandhian principles of Sarvodaya and Antodaya. A joint ownership of Bhungroo among five ultra-poor women farmers is sustaining them through crop-income, where none was possible before. By curtailing desertification, it helps women build resilience to climate change.

Bhungroo has thus emancipated women from debt trap, given them land ownership, and helped participate in local governance as a result of their expertise and influence in agriculture and water. It is now a fully women-driven process i.e. farmers’ selection, technology erection, operating and maintenance of all managed by women.