”Who likes going to the city?”
”Nobody!”
The youth sitting in front of us said this. Hearing this we felt little amused. Normally people are crazy for the city. When girls avoid even marrying a young man though he has a very large farming land but lives in a village, these young people do not like the city life!
It is a tale about the tribal families of Poshi area of Sabarkantha district. Living with limited resources,
these families just have no desires. They don’t even extract enough out of the nature! They feed themselves by little farming. But the water required for agriculture diminishes in their wells in late winter. So they have to rush (‘NAHVU PADE’…in their language) to the city to earn their livelihood.
What should be done was the issue to be considered. Dr. K R Shroff Foundation works in the field of education in this area. Organization fills the vacancies of teachers in government schools. Pratulbhai Shroff is its founder and Udaybhai Desai is its President. They both feel that the well-being of the people in this area should be improved.
They asked us to work in this direction. We decided to do water preservation projects in this area with their financial help. If the ponds and wells are deep enough and water is available throughout the year, residents do not have to leave the village. We asked government to join in this endeavor. We proposed to Dr. K. R. Shroff Foundation and VSSM to participate in deepening 16 lakes of Poshi block under Government’s ”Soojlam Suflam Abhiyan”. Respected Rishikeshbhai Patel, Honorable Minister helped us. Sabarkantha Collector Mr. Naimesh Dave and TDO of Poshi block, Mr. Nareshbhai Chowdhury, and Water Resources Corporation Officers also cooperated. Resultantly, we were able to deepen and widen 16 lakes and build 6 check dams.
Out of the 16 lakes we deepened, we went to see the lake in Bedigam village with a population of 3000 and talked with the tribal farming families about how we can help more. Respected Pratulbhai accompanied for this purpose. The farmers responded, ”The wells around the lake were filled up to the top because the lake was full tilt. We all farmers are happy. Now we will have water till the end of summer”. Along with this, they also said that ”we will not have to run to city (NAHVU NAHI PADE)”. We also discussed with them about the income enhancement if these families could rear animals. We told them we would arrange loans to buy cattle. We will work in that direction as well. Dr. K. R. Shroff Foundation and the team of VSSM are committed to work in this direction. Rahulbhai, Tohidbhai, Prakashbhai among the workers of both foundations have worked hard for this.
