Soak-pit revolution

At a time when large parts of the country are reeling under drought, groundwater levels are sinking and long queues of people wait to collect water from tankers, the district administration of Sitamarhi, Bihar is undertaking a people’s project that could go a long way.

With the support of some 5.5 lakh citizens, including students, teachers, parents, gram panchayat representatives and its own staff, it has constructed soak-pits adjacent to 2,168 hand-pumps to ensure there is no stagnant water. This, in turn, prevents mosquito breeding and the soak-pits help recharge groundwater.

The soak-pits were constructed in just eight hours — from 6 am to 2 pm on April 21, a day before Earth Day, and celebrated as Sokhta Day, in an attempt to enter the Limca Book of Records . There was a near-festive atmosphere with members of the public participating in the construction work. The pit sizes varied from 1.4x1.4 m and 1.2 m deep to 1.2x1.8 m and 1.8 m deep, depending on the number of people and households using the hand-pumps and the water consumed.

For the large number of students who participated in the construction and understood the value of the soak-pits, it was their first big, practical lesson on environment and development and the linkage between the two. The majority of the soak-pits — 1,983 — were constructed in government schools, 12 in private schools, 40 in madrasas, 25 in district health centres and 41 in anganwadis.

The Sitamarhi soak-pit revolution was an initiative of the district magistrate, Rajiv Raushan, and three Prime Minister’s Rural Development Fellows (PMRDFs) — Amit, Abhinav and Nitin, who visualised this simple and innovative way of changing rural life.

“We are hoping that the Sitamarhi Sokhta Kranti will motivate others to work for water conservation, groundwater recharge, sanitation and hygiene so that we have an empowered, clean and bluish-green (blue for water and green for forests) rural India,” says Nitin. There is already a change in the community’s thinking on the need for water conservation. With abundant water available, we hope to stave off the kind of water crisis that has hit Latur this year, he says.

With engineering backgrounds, the three PMRDFs worked on the design and technical aspects of the soak-pits in accordance with the local conditions. Supported by Unicef, the soak-pit revolution will prevent water stagnation near schools and avert vector-borne disease like malaria, filarial and kala azar . This will ensure there is less absenteeism in schools because of illness. Additionally, the soak-pits are expected to recharge 26 crore litres of groundwater annually.

The writer is a senior journalist based in Delhi

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