The Man Who Single-Handedly Changed More Than 10,000 Lives Through Rainwater Harvesting

Video|Image Source: Encore

Dr. Bhagwati P Agrawal is a social entrepreneur, who is the director of Sustainable Innovations Inc. based in Fairfax, Virginia. Agrawal pursued his higher education from America. He always had keen interest in technology, and never wanted to be questioned about the same. Been in America, he worked for creating technologies for over 100 Fortune companies.

Having achieved excellence in his endeavors, Agrawal remembered his roots very well. He had remembered the times when he had to fetch water from surrounding areas and consume that water for the whole day. One day he called upon a meeting with his friends who discussed about the lack of clean water and sanitation facilities in the Indian villages.

He visited villages and learnt the situations even better. Firstly as he says in his interview, there was no ground water in villages; water the village received was all rainwater. Due to this, women and kids had to spend around 4 hours every day on an average to fetch water and bring it back to their houses. In this manner the women would waste a lot of time daily and remain unemployed. The kids on the other hand had to miss their school.

Dr. Bhagwati Agrawal with his team launched an project called Aakash Ganga which would help encourage safe drinking practices in the villages. A villager explains, “When it rains then the water gets collected in smaller tanks and later when it overflows through these smaller tanks; then through perforated pipes and gutters it enters the bigger tanks(underground reservoirs).” This is a way of rainwater harvesting system promoted and led forward by the team of Aakash Ganga. Agrawal explained that he had wanted to do something for society, and he could do it only with his business know-how.

Today over 10,000 people in 6 drought prone villages in Rajasthan are benefitted by Aakash Ganga project. For this initiative Agrawal received the Purpose Prize in 2012. He is planning to take this project to more and more villages in India. For this he is working with local and state governments and is dedicated to provide health care services in urban slums in addition to the Aakash Ganga project.

The Logical Indian community salutes the good work he has been doing for the welfare of the society for years. The youth of India will surely be motivated by Dr. Agrawal’s initiative. We should also contribute to the society, by helping the Indian villages get proper education, health and hygiene facilities.