1. Inspired by his own success, an Ayurvedic doctor has
turned full time water conservationist.By Kavita Kanan Chandra
Mumbai
Little drops of water make a mighty ocean. That adage was proved right by Anil Joshi, an
Ayurveda doctor in Fatehgarh village in Madhya Pradesh, who collected one rupee each from
one lakh people and constructed a check dam across a local seasonal river called Somli and
changed the life of the farmers.
The doctor, who repeated the success story
of Fatehgarh by building 11 such dams
across rivers and nullahs around the areas,
has now turned a full-time water
conservationist and is all out to build 100
more such check dams in other villages
having water shortage.
In Fatehgarh, the dam, constructed in 2010,
permanently altered the face of the village –
from a drought stricken one into a well-
irrigated one.
Joshi, who had a clinic in the village since
1994, had developed familial ties with the
local people and was concerned about them
when successive droughts led to abject
poverty in the village.
“Some of my patients were farmers who
obtained 100-200 quintals of food grain
during harvesting season but after eight
years of meager rains, they were in a very
bad situation and had to buy food grain to
feed their family,” said 39-year-old Joshi.
The situation was so bad that his patients did
not even have money to pay his fees.
As a resident of Mandsaur, the district headquarters, Joshi has seen the good old days when
rains were sufficient and farmers harvested enough to sustain themselves. Things began to
change after 1999 as rainfall began to decrease.
Anil Joshi’s wife and children give their total support to his
work

2. In 2008, the village faced the worst drought and water scarcity made life difficult for farmers.
Joshi felt building a check dam across the river Somli would help the villagers, as it would
raise the ground water table in the area.
However, when he shared the idea with his farmer friends they treated it as a joke and many
just laughed it off. But Joshi was undeterred and went ahead with his plan.
He borrowed about a thousand empty cement sacks from a friend and filled them with sand.
He himself stood in the middle of the Somli river with a rope tied around his waist and his
friends held the rope on either ends.
“Though the river was dry, there was always a stretch where water flowed with strong
current. As I stood amidst the running water, I could gauge its force and realized what a
challenging task I had in my hand. The barrier that we planned to put up across the river had
to withstand the force of the water,” he recalls.
With the help of few friends, Joshi put all the sand filled sacks across the river in a row.
Within fifteen days, it rained and there was water in the check dam, which in turn recharged
the ground water in surrounding areas.
The hand pumps that had run dry
began to yield water again. “The
farmers were so happy. As farms got
irrigated there was a good crop that
year after years of drought,” says
Joshi.
Elated by this success, Joshi sold his
wife’s jewels the next year and
borrowed some money to construct
another check dam on the SomIi
river. His wife was fully supportive
of his work.
“Even today when I get involved in the house we are constructing, she motivates me to go
and build check dams instead and not worry about our house,” says Joshi. Even his two little
daughters – one studying in nursery and the other in class seven – are proud of their father’s
service.
It was in 2010 that Joshi hit upon the idea of taking one rupee from each villager for
constructing a permanent check dam across the Somli river. He felt such a dam would
permanently end the drought situation of the village.
Joshi was able to collect Rs 36 in just three hours on the first day, as he went from door-to-
door seeking support. The next day’s collection was Rs 120. However, some people began to
question him on his motive for collecting money from the people.
Joshi's check dams have raised the ground water table in the area

3. But thanks to a reporter of a leading Hindi daily, who wrote about his work, the tide turned in
his favour. “After the media wrote about the check dams I had built, more people started to
support me,” says Joshi. Two teachers, Sundarlal Prajapat and Omprakash Mehta, extended
their support in a big way.
Joshi and his dedicated team collected Rs one lakh in three months and a permanent check
dam was built at a cost of Rs 92000. The villagers voluntarily provided their labour.
Following the success at Fatehgarh, Joshi has helped to build eleven more check dams on
rivers and ‘nullahs’ (smaller channels of water) in eleven villages within a 10 km radius of
Fatehgarh.
He now aims to plant trees along the 120 km road to Sawaliya Dham to provide shade for the
barefoot pilgrims visiting the Krishna temple there and build 100 check dams within few
years.
“Constructing check dams by collecting one rupee from each person in a drought stricken
village has now become my mission and I will make this effort a continuous process,” says
Joshi, who is now becoming known more as a water conservationist and less as a medical
practitioner.