Last Update: March 04, 2023, 15:38 IST
The awardees are women representatives, teachers, sarpanchs, ASHA and Anganwadi workers, village water and sanitation committee members who have led the well-being of not only their families but the entire village. (News18)
Ahead of Women’s Day, the Ministry of Jal Shakti has selected some of these women from villages across India to give awards for bringing about a transformative change.
When 35-year-old Ganga Rajput from Chhatarpur in Madhya Pradesh first came up with the idea of reviving a defunct pond in her village to address the severe water shortage, she had to battle not only patriarchy, but also superstition. The residents abandoned the pond because of an incident that happened decades ago and they believed that tragedy could befall anyone who tried to revive it.
But as the water crisis deepened, Rajput realized that perhaps this was the only option that could avert the impending crisis facing the village. Every time Ganga protested, she told the villagers, “It is better to die for water than superstition.” She formed a group of 25 women – Jal Sahelis – and with the help of a local NGO, cleaned the pond and eventually restored it.
Ahead of Women’s Day, the Ministry of Jal Shakti has selected some of these women to be honored with the Swachh Sujal Shakti Samman (SSSS) for bringing about transformational change in their communities. These include women representatives, teachers, Sarpanch, Asha and Anganwadi workers, Village Water and Sanitation Committee members, who lead the prosperity of not only their families but the entire village. They battled patriarchy, gender bias, and resistance from their own families to step outside their homes to find solutions.
Like Ganga, Gayatri Devi from Jaipur, Rajasthan, is working to help women in about 15 villages around Sambhar Lake do rainwater harvesting. So is Sharda Devi from Lalitpur, Uttar Pradesh, who is gathering support for rejuvenating the local Barua river to address the water crisis in her village.
For Anita Chowdhary from Madhya Pradesh’s Chhindwar district, the decision to be a part of the work was important. She had seen her struggle and that of other women in her village for water. Therefore, when the opportunity arose to address the challenge, she did not hesitate to participate in the initiative.
For the past two years, Choudhary has been working to drive the implementation of the government’s Har Ghar Jal Yojana in her village, Garhmau. The village is now among the 48,000 villages in the country that have been certified with 100 per cent tap water connections to every household. Another awardee, K.K. ASHA ensures that there is no disruption to the water supply in her village and that any leaks in the tap water pipelines are fixed immediately.
Awardees include Green Ambassadors, Jal Yoddha, Jal Saheli, who are collecting and segregating plastic waste, rainwater harvesting, collecting water charges for potable tap water, conducting water testing and ensuring that potable water reaches every household. There are ‘rani mistris’ who build toilets and ‘swachhagrahis’ who engage in sanitation work, besides others who sensitize the village residents about waste segregation.
Women have been at the forefront of implementing some large-scale government schemes in rural India, including Har Ghar Jal and Swachh Bharat.
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