Mr. Dulappa, a marginal farmer from Nandur K village Kalaburgi District Karnataka relies on farming to support his family members. Due to his impoverished family background, Dulappa was forced to quit his studies after matriculation. He leads an ordinary life along with his wife and three children. Dulappa has four acres of land where he mainly cultivates vegetables like brinjal, tomato, potato, and onion along with Tor dal, maize and sugarcane. He also owns a nursery as a source of livelihood. He earns a monthly average income of Rs. 15,000/- to Rs. 17,000/- from selling vegetables grown on his farmland and selling saplings of vegetables like brinjal, lady fingers, and chilly.

As an active member of ‘Hanumantha’ farmer’s club and a volunteer of Sevasangama Development Society (SSDS), he along with other 9 farmers of the farmers’ club, meet once a month to discuss farming, schemes available for farmers, addressing crop diseases in part because Nandur K village is a drought-prone area. Through the U3 programme, Sevasangama Development Society (SSDS), Gulbarga diocese has enhanced the knowledge of farmers through capacity-building training of the villagers through leadership, management of an association, multi-cropping and organic farming. In one of the capacity-building training on water conservation methods, the villagers were trained on how to conserve rainwater through borewell recharging, and the percolation of rainwater to the bore well after the filtering mechanism. In the year 2019, Mr. Dulappa dug a 340 ft deep borewell collecting 1.5-inch water. For the time being, he continued to water his farm through regular irrigation. His neighbour also relies on his borewell for agricultural purposes.

However, in 2022 the borewell got dried due to the receding water level in the region. Dulappa decided to take the support of a technician to repair the borewell thrice which proved to be futile. Realising the gravity of the issue, Dulapa discussed the matter with U3 team and volunteers for a possible resolution. Through the network of SSDS partners, Dulappa was referred to MYRADA (Mysore Resettlement and Development Agency), a non-profit organisation working in Gulbarga working in watershed development programmes in the region. MYRADA provided Dulapa with the financial assistance of Rs. 40,000/- for making the borewell recharge structure along with the help of a technician. The process to install the borewell recharge structure was completed in the month of March 2022. This borewell recharge structure is a model installed in this village and will be supervised yearly to monitor the groundwater level.

In the past three months, Dulapa is happy to see the rainwater going to the borewell. He expressed that he is confident that the structure will help to fill borewells and get access to groundwater without many difficulties. He is guided to make bund structures and percolation pits in his farmland to increase the groundwater level. For this, he will use the MGNREGA scheme which is available from Gram Panchayath.

He is confident to further providing assistance to other farmers who are willing to establish similar structures on their land’. He and his family members are now relieved from the issue of repairing the borewell and are leading a more peaceful life.