Success Stories and Case Studies

Kaudikasa is a small village with a population of just 350 people in the Ambagad Chowki block of the Rajnandgaon district in Chhattisgarh. Despite its small size, Kaudikasa village has been in the news for all the wrong reasons. Severe health problems have been reported from the village, thanks to acute arsenic contamination in its groundwater.

Every year, thousands of villages in Maharashtra get affected by droughts. Experts say that the reasons for recurrent droughts include a lack of policy framework, technical knowledge and community participation as well as poor implementation of government programmes.

Alternative Futures: India Unshackled is a book that brings together scenarios of an India that is politically and socially egalitarian, radically democratic, economically sustainable and equitable, and socio-culturally diverse and harmonious.

Ambikapur has become a role model for all the urban local bodies (ULBs) in Chhattisgarh for its successful solid liquid resource management (SLRM). Thanks to Ritu Sen, former collector of Ambikapur and her team for taking the initiative to clean the city and for bringing the women's self-help groups (SHGs) together for this noble cause. 

The Makhala village is located in the Amravati district in the southwestern Satpura mountain ranges. Situated at 959 m above mean sea level, this Maharashtra village has 352 households with a population of 1045. Although accessible by road in all seasons, the village is isolated and surrounded by forests. The nearest village is Semadoh at a distance of 12 km.

Sari-clad women handling tools with alacrity while fixing water hand pumps is a common sight in the Sabarkantha district in north Gujarat.

Pearl farmer Sanjay Gandate (33) was waiting for my arrival at his house in Pardi Kupi in the Naxal-affected Gadchiroli district in Maharashtra. I had missed my early morning bus to Pardi Kupi and took an autorickshaw instead to reach the village. Sanjay greeted me and took me to Wainganga river.

Shilpi Bai was just 18 when she got married to Magan Singh Solanki in Jamnia village, in Dhar district, Madhya Pradesh. She had dreams in her eyes of a great life ahead. She was healthy and soon became a mother of two children. Her husband was a farmer and she would help him in the field after completing the errands at home.

Women of Podapathar village in Sundargarh district in Odisha have become an inspiration for millions of women in the country now, thanks to their determination to improve the drinking water situation in their village. 

On January 13, 1957, the then Prime Minister of India, Jawaharlal Nehru inaugurated the Hirakud dam, calling it the temple of modern India. It has submerged more than 360 villages (1,23,000 acres of land) and displaced 26,561 families.