At the 2025 Republic Day parade, states and union territories presented tableaux capturing the year’s theme of ‘Swarnim Bharat: Virasat aur Vikas’. In Bundelkhand, this vision of heritage (virasat) and progress (vikas) is being demonstrated through the rejuvenation of traditional tanks built between 8 AD and 17 AD.
Legacy
Bundelkhand, which comprises 14 districts across Madhya Pradesh and Uttar Pradesh, is a water-scarce region with a history of recurrent droughts. Its rocky terrain causes rainwater to run off, so it has limited groundwater potential. Bundela and Chandela rulers in the area understood this and between 8 AD and 17 AD they developed water harvesting structures for capturing monsoon run-off and storing it for year-round use.
In recent decades however, the structures have fallen into disuse and disrepair. As the climate crisis deepens the region’s water security concerns, these very tanks have emerged as the answer to the challenges of the local community.
Since 2019, Self-Reliant Initiatives through Joint Action (SRIJAN), in partnership with Hindustan Unilever Foundation (HUF), has restored 149 tanks and related structures across seven districts in this area. The tanks in Alopa and Mudara villages in Madhya Pradesh’s Tikamgarh district were the first to be desilted in 2018. This is what they looked like before the pilot project commenced.
Five months later, on completion of the pilot, the tanks were filled with water.
The initiative combines traditional and local knowledge with appropriate technology and scientific know-how. With community participation and ownership, tanks such as those in Alopa, Mudara, and Kudar in Tikamgarh have turned into a lifeline for the villages in the area.
Heritage meets progress
As part of this initiative, traditional community wisdom was combined with modern technology to revive both standalone tanks and cascades of water bodies of various sizes and in multiple setups.
Local community members shared the history and use of these structures and helped with their mapping. Equipped with this knowledge, the SRIJAN team employed Geographic Information System (GIS) and remote sensing technology to conduct a geological survey of the watershed and catchment area.
As the teams scoped the region, they realised that in the absence of maintenance, sediment had accumulated and compacted in most of the traditional tanks. This adversely affected both the percolation of water and the storage capacity of the tanks.
The programme provided a JCB excavator to desilt the old tanks, and local farmers volunteered to transport the silt in their tractors at their own cost. They reused it to enrich the soil in their own farms.
Community ownership
A participatory approach is used to manage the tanks. Members from the community form a tank management committee (TMC), with an emphasis on women’s representation. This group develops protocols for the tanks and catchment area as well as plans for equitable water distribution in the village. It also budgets in demand and usage in its fortnightly or monthly meetings.
Water levels in the wells and tanks are monitored closely. When the water recedes to a certain level, the TMC requests farmers to refrain from drawing more. Given that the TMC comprises people they know and respect, farmers adhere to the TMC’s decisions on which crops to grow and how many can be grown in a year based on water availability.
The rejuvenation of tanks has brought water security to these districts in Bundelkhand, providing enough water for agriculture, drinking, domestic needs, and animal husbandry. Migration has decreased because the region has better crop yield as well as more fruit orchards and vegetable plots. Women have been trained to run their own Prakritik Kendra, which provides organic fertilisers and formulations to farmers and encourages natural farming. Crop rotation and natural farming have, in turn, improved soil quality and boosted groundwater recharge.
To continue this cycle of ‘Virasat aur Vikas’, the community can sustain this model of rejuvenation and regeneration and serve as an example for others to follow across the country.
—
