Place :- Village- Sarwardewala, Cluster -Khargone, State-Madhya Pradesh
Sarwardewala, a small village in Kasrawad tehsil of Khargone District in Madhya Pradesh. It is located 31 KM towards south from district headquarters khargone and 295 Km from state capital Bhopal.
The village is surrounded by Maheshwar tehsil towards East, Dhar tehsil towards the west. The people of Sarwardewala village are subsistence farmers who rely on intermittent sources of water for their domestic needs (about 60% are suffering from lack of potable water).
Over decades, the villagers’ health has been highly affected due to lack of potable drinking water facility. To get a bucket of drinking water is a struggle for most women in the village. They (who are primarily responsible for fetching water) have to walk a distance of about 2 km from their homes in the small and narrow street towards the river to retrieve water for daily drinking needs exposing them to physical issues and other health related issues.
Thus, life of woman in the village is sheer drudgery. To mitigate the problem, a need assessment was conducted by Navrachna Trust and it was found that there is a lack of nearby source for potable drinking water in the village and there is also frequent power cut in the village so an activity was conducted for mechanizing borewells with solar powered pumps to provide potable drinking water for the community in the village.
The choice of using solar lifting pump to supply water in the Sarwardewala village is motivated by several reasons. Sarwardewala village enjoys sunshine of almost 300 days in a year. Most population are from deprived section and has less access to electricity and hence, use of solar pump will not burden them with electricity cost. Also maintenance of solar pump is minimal and involves nothing more than washing the dust off occasionally.
| Name of villages | Sarwardewala Village |
|---|---|
| Total No. of Household | 439 HH covered by Solar water lifting pump |
| Total Population | 2235 |
| No. of Cattle | 1749 |
After visiting the two sites, the site which is in the middle of the village near to panchayat bhawan and primary, middle school and bus stand was chosen. After knowing the water use of inhabitants residing in the village, engineers decided to install solar pump of 1.5 HP with storage tanks of 2000 litres to meet water demand even in the event of cloudy weather.
The organization provided one water post with three taps connected by PV pipes from the distribution water tank located at the top of the mounted iron structure. People will retrieve the portable water nearest their homes from the water post. A village energy committee is established and under that they contribute some amount monthly for secure services and proper operation of Solar Lifting pump in the longer run.
It has been beneficial to women and girls thus reducing the health issues resulting from long walks. It had resulted into productivity too as the women no longer has to spent time away from house.