Together Everyone Achieves More
Kuthale Water Crisis, 2019
In May 2019, T.E.A.M. learned about Kuthale, an 1800 person village in the district of Thane. All the nearby sources of water for the village had dried up, and the locals had to walk 4km to obtain water from a lake. As they were unable to carry more than a few litres at a time, the villagers were always short of water. A 21 member T.E.A.M. coalition from 11 schools in Mumbai assembled to tackle the project, and began by providing immediate relief to the villagers in the form of daily deliveries of water by truck.
However, the roads leading up to the village were so poor that even the trucks were unable to access the village. T.E.A.M. began by helping construct a 4 km stretch of road by filling in the earth, and after 5 days of round-the-clock efforts, the tankers were able to start supplying the village with water. This not only resolved the short term issue of water shortage, but also improved the connectivity of the village for the long term.
A water divining expert was then approached, and he identified two locations where there was about a 50% chance of finding water - one 500 metres away and the other at a 2km distance. We then organized a bore well contractor to do the digging, but three successive agencies promised to do the job only to come back a few days later and tell us that they refused to dig the well. We were confused and concerned that we had already lost over two weeks, and only later found out that there were local political obstacles in the way of the project. Another major challenge was that both well locations were on forest land that belonged to the government - using it would require T.E.A.M. to obtain 20 permissions from multiple governmental departments and agencies.
Despite the hopelessness of the situation, the T.E.A.M. members did not lose hope, and began meeting with the various government entities. By the end of the month, not only were the requisite permissions obtained, but a contractor had also finally visited the site and agreed to do the job. However, to our great disappointment, both wells turned out to be dry even at a depth of 700 feet, as the rocks in the region were fractured and so the water kept percolating and never accumulated in an aquifer. The villagers were particularly disheartened by our most recent failure, and had resigned themselves to the fact that they would soon be abandoned after a few more weeks of truck-delivered water.
However, T.E.A.M. never stopped brainstorming, and a member came up with the idea of using a PolyPond. This new concept was relatively untested in India but seemed like the only way out - constructing an artificial lake covered with a 500 micron HDPE (high-density polyethene) geomembrane fabric that would retain the water. A site for this unique and unconventional solution was identified 500 metres away from the city center, and T.E.A.M. got to work immediately.
This project was extremely expensive, and so T.E.A.M had to raise a lot more money to accomplish their goals. However, over 35 lakhs of rupees were raised, and after 9 weeks of hard work in which the 21 T.E.A.M. members were aided by 60 contractors and 11 engineers, the poly pond was constructed. This was also connected to the village center by pipeline, supplemented by two 5000 litre storage tanks (one for drinking water and one for other uses), and further enhanced by an RO (reverse osmosis) purification system to treat the water. When 17 T.E.A.M. members and 20 volunteers visited Kuthale in August 2019, they were delighted by the results and were able to declare Kuthale as drought free forever!
Summary Video
