Padma awardee to educate farmers about ancient techniques to save water

Farmers need to do their bit to save water for which making boundary mounds and planting saplings would be of great help, said Padma Shri Uma Shankar Pandey also referred to as ‘pani ke pehredar’ in UP villages.

Hailing from Jakhni village in Banda and best known for his contributions in groundwater conservation, Pandey was in Lucknow to attend the two-day National Climate Conclave.

“Number of rainy days has gone down from an average 120 days to 41 days and the water table is depleting due to uncontrolled irrigation. It is time that farmers opt for our ancient technique of water retention through medh (boundary mound),” he said here on Tuesday.

The 60-yer-old man is planning another campaign now. “I have decided to start a Jal Andolan in villages with deficient water levels. I will start my awareness movement from Mahoba or Chhatarpur district. I will ride a bicycle and carry a microphone with me and in this endeavour, I will be joined by ten water warriors to educate/make farmers aware of water conservation,” said Pandey.

“We will conduct meetings in villages and tell them (villagers) har khet me medh aur har medh par ped (boundary mound in every field and a tree on every boundary mound) will help in water retention in fields,” he said.

“At first we will cover 15 districts of Bundelkhand region, some of which will be in Madhya Pradesh, in next two months. Later we will visit other parts of India,” said Pandey.

His inspiration is his village Jakhni in Banda where he worked for about two decades. “Medhbandi technique is used in 1.82 lakh hectares of land in India. We need to spread it in other parts.”