Water Harvesting - History Vs Modernity

Water is key to survival of any life form in this planet. However, we have ignored it for long. We have infact polluted the planet with all these new inventions. Our ancestors knew how to work with nature and harvest rain and preserve fresh water in our planet. When I visited small villages in Western Orissa, I could see many small ponds (Bandh) and large water bodies with earthen dams on one side (Kanta). Rain water was stored in these large water bodies and was key source for agriculture and other uses. There were lot of wells which were used for drinking purpose. These days we find very few of them. We instead dig hundreds of feet to draw water.

Here are few videos posted. By Mr. Viswanath. The case study is of some villages in Puri district. There are very few old wells remaining and more people use deep bore wells. However, as the area is near to cosat, the water of deep bore well is either salty or traces of iron is found. In both the cases it is not good for use. With rain water harvesting and building ponds and large water bodies to collect rain water and wells near them will certainly help tp solve the problem.


Part I



Part II



Part III



Thanks