Do you remember the story of Dashrath Manjhi? The man who broke the mountain that became the cause of his wife's death, paving the way to saving more lives. He was also known as the mountain man and single-handedly paved a way through a hill by using hammer and chisel.
Similar to Manjhi's story, now women of Chhatarpur village of Madhya Pradesh have cut hill to resolve water crisis in a remarkable feat. 250 women from Angrotha village of Chhatarpur district in Madhya Pradesh have succeeded in cutting a hill in order to resolve their ongoing water crisis.
Madhya Pradesh represents great river basins and the watershed of a number of rivers. Catchments of many rivers of India lie in Madhya Pradesh. The Narmada (originating from Amarkantak) and Tapti (originating from Multai of Betul District) rivers and their basins divide the state in two, with the northern part draining largely into the Ganga basin and the southern part into the Godavari and Mahanadi systems.
Nearly 60% of the surface water can be retained for different uses thus there are a scope for almost more than double the irrigation capacity by building small dams in different streams. It is also seen that, the eastern and south-eastern part of MP has more runoff because of relatively higher rainfall, high gradient and occurrence of crystalline rocks in the major portion of the area. The central part receives lesser rains and therefore proportionate decrease in runoff water and cropping patterns. Western part of MP receive’s much less rain and hence the relatively runoff is less.
