Jugal Kishore Pattnayak
Rayagada: Dalmeridi in Shibapadar panchayat of Muniguda block in Rayagada district is a tiny village housing at least 20 tribal families. The hilly hamlet is hardly a fifteen-minute drive from Rayagada district headquarters town. So what? You may ask.
Call it nature’s bounty: Rain water along with hill rivulets have been flowing into the village pond depositing sand and sediments for years. Consequently, the sand-crusted water body has been disrupting smooth flow of water into the agricultural fields down stream.
In order to resolve the issue, villagers, in unison, have decided to build two gully plugs across the streams to arrest flow of sand into the storage pond.
With the support of New Delhi-based NGO Goonj, a voluntary outfit, the inhabitants joined hands to construct the gully plugs. In just a couple of days, the villagers worked for seven hours a day, to build the gully plugs on the rainwater streams.
The first gully plug is 23 ft long and 2.5ft wide having a slope of 3 ft both sides.
Thanks to their strong will-power and sheer determination, the villagers worked together to check soil erosion and helped prevent sedimentation chocking the pond.
After the constructions, the tribal villagers are able to utilise pond water for their daily consumption. Also, more than eight acres of farm land is being irrigated after stream-lining the project for the fields.
The viilagers have recently urged the district administration to renovate the pond for the benefit of the villagers.
