- Registered on 17th November, 2004
The year 2002 was the fifth consecutive year of extreme drought and famine in Udaipur division of Rajasthan. The monsoons had failed again, water sources had dried up, farm lands turned into barren pail became wasteland and even for a pot of drinking water women had to creks for miles in the seacing heat. The state government's effort to help the suffering people was not enough. Involvement of civil society groups was badly needed.
Some of us who believed in "serving the under privileged is serving divinity", who had passed the stage of making a living and now living for serving decided to act in Famine affected rural area around Udaipur. After wide consultations with experts on ecology, agricultural- scientist, social workers, government officials and the residents of the areas during several field visit we decided that the relief work would be done in two Gram Panchayats viz Palana Khurd and Noorda in the Mavli sub division . There area are is hilly, inhabited mostly by tribals and almost without any water resources. Hence the relief work was started by supply of drinking water for humans and live stock to eighteen hamlets of the two selected Panchayat Samities. Besides scarcity of water the dry barren land was without any vegetation cover. There was also shortage of fodder for animals.
The district administration was importing fodder from Punjab and U.P. and on our request they made the fodder available to the 450 families in our service area on subsidized rate. Nineteen trucks of fodder weighing 2,20,000 Kg. was distributed by us. Even though the government gave us the fodder at half of the market rate it cost us Rs. 3,30,000.
Each of the 18 hamlets (averaging 40-50 house hold each) were provided with a 2000 litre syntex tank for water storage for human use and with villagers contributing free labour one piao (Drinking water kiosk) was built with the materials provided by us in each hamlet, costing Rs. 12,700. Once the water storage facility was in place our water tanker (capacity 5000Lt.) was sent to each hamlet to fill the tanks and piaos everyday. This delivery system was operational for four months till the monsoons arrived. The total numbers of tankers sent was 637 (six hundred and thirty seven- total cost Rs. 1,46,000). With the hope of getting some water we contributed Rs. 11,000 in blasting local dried up wells. Of course the concerned persons contributed the physical labour.
Almost all the cattle survived in the hamlets. For their continued survival we organised vaccination campaign for them, particularly against foot and mouth disease. The local compounder gave his free services but about Rs. 1100 was spent by us on the purchase of injections.
Our volunteers who were involved in providing services observed that the drought conditions were particularly hard on children. Many of them were just roaming aimlessly in the scorching heat. We arranged for lady care taker in the hamlets to look after these children. To keep them busy we provided books, indoor games and mid-day meals for them. This service continued till the schools reopened in July and it cost us Rs. 70,000.
During drought and famine it becomes very expensive and difficult for poor people to maintain there domestic animals particularly in the urban area. A few of these are put in Kanji houses (Animal care) but most of them roam on streets. We decided to do something for these abandoned animals. We adopted a goshala at Balicha village about thirty miles from Udaipur city in March 2003 and with the help of police moved all abandoned animals and those that were all kept in Kanji house to the goshala. 80 cattle from the Kanji house in Udaipur were moved to goshala at the first instance and they were soon joined by 275 abandoned cattle, horses and donkeys rounded up from the street. For subsequent four months we looked after them Rs. 1,60,000 were spent on dry fodder, Rs. 60,000 on fresh green fodder and Rs. 20,200 on nutritional food (Banta). They were supplied to the goshala. Ninety tankers of water was needed to over come the shortage of drinking water for animals and this cost us Rs. 35,000, the goshala was not equipped to look after such a large number of domestic animals so we donated them a fodder house. animal shelter with mangers and Piao which were constructed at the cost of Rs 5,60,000.
After the onset of monsoon in July we withdrew in service programmes for drought and famine relief. We thank our donors for enabling us to do what we did that was needed to be done to elevate the stress and suffering in our service area.'
This experience enriched was as human-being, gave us confidence, awakined us to redefine existence and priorities in our life.