The 300th farm pond was excavated in Kuknoor village, in Veldurthy mandal of Medak district last December, as part of Bala Vikasa Water Conservation Program, helping rural poor farmers conserve crores of liters of water for irrigation and earn additional income from fish-farming.

As part of the sustainable agriculture and water conservation program, Bala Vikas has helped organic farmers save and store 12 Cr Liters of rainwater for irrigation by excavating 340 farm ponds so far. Each measuring 432 cubic meters, these farm ponds have helped 10% improvement in water-levels of the surrounding open wells, by enabling percolation of 30 crore liters of water into the ground.

This quarter, a total of 64 farm ponds were excavated to provide enhanced irrigation facilities in Jallapur and Kukunoor in Veldurthi, Medak. Each tank has a water storage capacity of 4.50 lakh liters.

One of the beneficiary farmers, Ramesh Goud said, “When I learned about the Bala Vikasa farm ponds project, I felt that this would resolve my irrigation problems. I immediately joined this project. We can already see the benefits - It is helping in improving the water levels in the surrounding open wells and we look forward to making additional income from the fishes that have been seeded in our pond.”

We also conducted 2 capacity-building training sessions on farm ponds for farmers from Gajwel and Medak districts, to train them on tree plantation on farm pond bunds and fish-rearing activities.

Farmer G Srinivas, who attended a training conducted by Bala Vikasa, said, “I applied for farm pond excavation to increase water availability for my farms. After attending the training, I understood my role and responsibilities in the construction and maintenance of my farm pond. The thought-provoking training attracted me towards fish cultivation. I motivated 19 other farm pond farmers to cultivate fish too. Soon the word spread in the village and 31 out of 20 farm pond farmers came forward to cultivate fish. We together purchased around 29,000 fish to rear in our ponds.”

Besides, for rain harvesting and recharging borewells, 28 borewells were restored last October, in Veldurthi village of Uppalingapur mandal in the Kukunoor district. Of these, 10 borewells of the village Gram Panchayat, and 18 borewells belonging to farmers were recharged, helping 318 households get access to water for irrigating 18 acres of farmland.