1970’s

These were the efforts put in from 1964-71. But then it was felt that our zeal had a fall, a decline, mostly because we had to expend lot from our pockets and most of the trustees were bogged with family, household, occupational responsibilities and probably also had a feeling of satisfaction with which we had exhaustively put efforts over these years, feeling dreams come true. We had thoughtful plans for few more years, upto 1974-75 and the activities were entrusted with the organizational workers and partner organizations.

And suddenly the country experienced a tremor, a natural disaster, a nationwide shock ‘the drought of 1972’ All equations faltered and abated, no crops, food scarcity, problems of drinking water, sudden fall in water table, pity faces, no employment opportunities and handcuffed situation. It was our first experiences of extreme vagaries and we felt as heading a dead block. Similar was the condition of other organizations and development workers. Policies were not favouring and administration co-cocked at many fronts. One example, Public Distribution System collapsed, there was immense scarcity of foodgrains but still we could not bring wheat from Punjab and we had to distribute sattu to the affected people. There were so many problems cropping up all at one time. In these two years rom 72 to 74 all of us working in development sector and also all the trustees of Mandal had discussions and deliberations on this critical and emergent issue. In 1974 a seminar was conducted for drought mitigation, which spoke aloud the need for water conservation.
Dr Moses (FROM) was instrumental (IN). 22-24 water conservation structures were constructed in Revgaon and that too at meager cost of Rs. 5 lakhs. Handpump manufacturing was extended with assistance from UNICEF along with training for handpump repair and maintenance. Drilling boreholes and installing handpump was a major activity undertaken in whole of Central Maharashtra. AFPRO took up this activity on a large scale. We failed to in this ‘business’ and had to declare ourselves bankrupt. Despite of all this work was going on but concurrently voice was raised against working further and at that stage Mandal was on the verge of dissolution. Most of the members disagreed for continuation, still it was pleaded to think over, plan and work out suitable and feasible strategies with internal as well as external experiences and learning. Need to strengthen local structures came out prominently, which should set up Agriculture Development Fund to shield and safeguard livelihood of poor in natural calamities and to carry on resource conservation at community level.  Incidentally, efforts of development workers in Maharashtra led to formation of a consortium for agriculture renewal, AFARM. ‘Food for Work’ sowed the seeds of watershed development. Villagers of Dev Pimpalgaon approached Mandal to undertake employment-oriented activities for the poor labourers. As digging or drilling wells as a strategy was showing its limitations in addressing the real problems, Mandal started working with the concept of "recharging of aquifers" as a strategy to counter the ill‑effects of drought. MSSM had experimented on “artificial recharge” in village Revgaon, Later, the approach was refined and adopted in village Dev‑Pimpalgaon during 1978-82 after the drought, with support from Swiss Development Cooperation (SDC) and technical guidance of Action for Food Production (AFPRO) GIT-I.

It was decided to construct a percolation tank in the village. Geo-hydrological survey was conducted with technical assistance of AFPRO. During execution of this tank, as an opportunity, agriculture and drought were discussed at community level and various technical and social measures were planned for further action. Initially OXFAM and later SDC provided funding for this project. Convinced with the activities implemented, people of Dev Pimplagaon came together to take the challenge and wage their efforts against drought. Dev Pimpalgaon taught that any meaningful development in rural areas can be only through regeneration of the environment and this is possible by creating faith in soil & water conservation and afforestation, along with agriculture development. This work started showing its impact realised by 1981.

1980’s