Page 26 - final Nai Udaan september 2024

Early life of Dr. Rajendra Geo – Hydro Science and natural engineering
Singh
Rajendra Singh was born on August 6, 1959
in village Daula in Bagpat district in Uttar
Pradesh near Meerut. Way back to 1982,
after graduating in Ayurvedic Sciences,
young Rajendra took employment in Nehru
Yuvak Kendra Sansthan as a national volunteer. It
gave him the opportunity to serve in villages
of Alwar, Rajasthan. During that time, most
parts of Alwar district had been declared
‘dark zones’ by the state government irriga-
tion department due to water scarcity. He
came face to face with ruthless reality of
drought hit Alwar district of Rajasthan.
Water resources were drying up which
resulted in many villagers leaving agriculture
and migrating other places to survive . He
saw the exasperation of rural Rajasthan
starved of food, drinking water and proper
sanitation . When this young doctor arrived
to help the local communities, they told him
what they needed wasn’t his medical
services, but water. They needed water
anything else for survival.
Ayurvedic doctor turned
water conversationalist
Rajendra Singh joined service as project
officer in Ministry of Education, but the
activist in him brought him to Alwar later
and he embarked on a journey to conserve
water resources. Driven by a greater
purpose, he made a bold decision to leave
his job. Then , he launched a project for
alleviation of water crisis and floods under
Tarun Bharat Sangh of Bhikampura , a non –
governmental organization of social workers
and volunteers . He nurtured this institution as
its mentor and leader activist. Native villagers
helped him to to master the study of
24 xÉ<Ç =cÉxÉ flrEcj
-2024
of dams.
Experimentation with
traditional water harvesting
system – Use of local resources
and technology
While treating villagers from various diseases,
he met an old man, called Mangu Kaka ,who
inspired him to work on traditional methods
of water conservation. He requested him to
find natural solutions to tackle water crisis.
He learned about the ancient practices of
water harvesting. The newly gained knowledge
along with his understanding of science
helped him to build crescent shaped small
dams made up of mud rocks, called Johads
to store water during rainy season. These
structures not only hold water that runoff
from monsoon rains, but also percolate into the
ground with minimum evaporation and
improve the groundwater recharge.
The team of Tarun Bharat Sangh
experimented with restoring old rain
water harvesting system and built first
Johad in 1985 called as ‘chabootre wala
johad’. It retained water and enabled a few
village wells to fill up , encouraging villagers to
built the second one in 1986 called as
‘mewalon ka baandh’ .