Project Jal – Bore-Well Recharge System

Water is a primary necessity for every aspect of life. And, when it comes to irrigating the crops, our farmers largely depend either on rain water or Bore-wells for water. With the water being a limited resource, effective management of water resources is critical to sustaining the crop yields.

Project Jal is one of our most focused projects that emphasizes on effective utilization of rain water to refill or recharge the Bore-wells that can be used to water the farms year-round.

Problems faced by the farmers

• Farmers take loans to drill bore wells, and their rate of use is far greater than the rate of replenishment, leaving them dry after a couple of years.
• Due to high dependency on the bore wells for irrigation, the crop yields go low and it gets difficult for the farmers to repay the loans.
• If the rains are not enough, the situation further worsens and the farmers have a hard time meeting their daily needs.

SIF Initiatives/Solution: A unique technique to recharge the Bore-wells using rain water.

We partnered with Sankalpa Rural Development Society that offers a unique technique to harvest rain water and feed it to the water table for safe keeping via existing borewells that farmers have already dug. This technique is called direct borewell recharge. We also partnered with Manavlok, Parmarth and REEDs to implement similar borewell recharge structures in many regions of India.

Our Goal

Recharge at least 200+ Bore-wells in 2017 using the above technique. The typical cost to recharge a borewell is around Rs. 30,000 to Rs. 40,000. Out of total money needed, typically, the farmer spends 50% and our organization provides the remaining. We do make exception to this rule for Farmers, who have high debt and/or are distressed (as per our intervention and in person conversation with the farmer).

Borewell- Recharge technique

The recharge system consists of 2 parts : borewell pit on the left and storage water tank on the right. The water tank gets filled on rainy days and sends water to the borewell pit. The borewell pit filters that water through stones, pebbles and dirt.  This water goes through the cement ring  around the borewell and through a filter  down into the ground. This can then be pumped out by the farmer as per his/her farming needs.

Salnkalp Rural Development Society helped us conduct a pilot project in different villages of Dharur Taluk in Beed District. We recharged 13 Bore-wells using this technique. This helped conserve over 15 million liters of water, which was sufficient for 10 poor farmers to harvest a second crop even in drought like situations.

Our Partners on Ground

We have partnered with multiple NGOs to help us implement Project Jal. Our on the ground partners help us by visiting the sites, monitoring the progress, understanding the challenges and working with us to resolve them.

We have partnered with the following organizations so far:

Our Progress

Total Collections made so far: $60,000

Amount Disbursed for Borewell recharges: $50,000

Remaining amount will be disbursed during subsequent implementations

Here is how your donations have helped us so far