Water water everywhere

Founded by late Vilasrao Salunkhe in Naigaon region of Purandar district,the organisation aims to achieve sustainable rural development. To meet its goal,it led to a movement,’Pani Panchayat’ in the rural areas. The movement aims at enabling equitable distribution of water to people in the village through sustainable development of the watershed. It has also developed holistic farming system through the use of organic farming. Some of the successful projects of The GGP are the Naigaon model and the Ponde model. In the Naigaon model protective irrigation was successfully brought about with the participation of the local community,whereas the Ponde model brought about equal water distribution through micro watershed. Another achievement of the Gram Gaurav Prathisthan is that it has been extremely successful in bringing together the people from rural areas for the cause of rural development through water distribution.

After Salunkhe,his wife Kalpana Salunkhe has taken up the responsibility as the managing trustee of the NGO.

The GGP has also worked with the tribals throughout Maharashtra for the same. Widening its area and thus its reach,the organisation is working with corporate organisations such as Bilt,Suzlon and Praj. It is also carrying out a number of projects related to organic farming in rural Maharashtra.

Kalpana Tai Salunkhe has judiciously kept alive the essence of the movement. “It was not a smooth sail for the organization that faced difficulties like issues of energy and electricity. Also,there were agitations against the activities of GGP but the organisation successfully and amicably solved the problems with proper dialogue with the concerned authorities and villagers.”

GGP does not believe in the gap between the privileged class and the under privileged class. It seeks to bring about development from within for the rural areas. “Development has to be a complete circle. Unfortunately today we only look at vertical development. It should be such that natural resources should be nurtured. The nature’s cycle should remain undisturbed. There should be a balance in everything,” she adds.