OREANDA-NEWS. August 8, 2012. Tata Power, India’s largest Integrated Power Company organized an exposure visit of Panchayat members at Ralegan siddhi and Hivre bazaaron12th July.

Located within 30 km. of each other both these villages are part of Ahmednagar district (Maharashtra) and well known for distinguished work on watershed management carried out under the leadership of Shri Anna Hazare and Shri Poppat Rao Pawar respectively. This geographical area falls under rain Shadow area with meager annual rainfall of 300 to 400 mm. However, careful management of water had improved crop yields, increased incomes and reduced indebtedness.

The objective of the visit was to sensitize community leaders on watershed management and water harvesting, to develop an understanding on functioning of a Gram Sabha and to understand resource mobilization and fund leveraging at village level through Shramdaan and participation.

During the visit, the community leaders also had interactions with Shri Anna Hazare and Shri Poppat Rao Pawar and they elaborated on how a Gram Sabha should play an important role in making villages self-sufficient. In both these villages, the Gram Sabha has emerged as a powerful forum for taking collective decisions at the village level.  All the developmental programmes are implemented in the village after taking consent of the Gram Sabha. Shri Hazare also dwelt on how villagers should take initiative in resource mobilization by contributing through Shramdaan forproject worksand said that the panchayats can be more effective if its incumbent show high moral values.

Speaking on the occasion, Mr. D. S. Kudalkar, General Manager (Jamshedpur), Tata Power, said, “We are looking forward to working with the Panchayati Raj Institution(PRI) members and intend to work jointly with Government bodies in the community to resolve the water scarcity issues they are facing. This capability building exercise through exposure visit was intended to make the PRI members aware about watershed management and to motivate them to emulate these practices in their area”.