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This is a farm pond in village Kadvanchi, Jalna. I had the privilege to visit this village with my friend and classmate Yugandhar Mandavkar and Pandit Wasare. They undertook watershed development project in this Village from 1996-2000. 1/n #Kadvanchi 
As a result of what they suggested and villagers implemented under the Indo German Watershed Development programme of Nabard, village has adequate water in April, when rainfall was 30% lower than normal. 2/n #Kadvanchi
Kadvanchi‘s average rainfall is less than 650mm. Yet due to IGWD, gross income of village has increased from 75 lacs in 2000 to 75 crores in current year. Main crop is grapes. 3/n #Kadvanchi
IGWD involved 4-5 simple suggestions- afforestation with trenching (CTC), bundling for soil conservation, check dams and farm ponds. They had estimated that 27-28% of land can be cultivated based on average rainfall. Today village cultivates 46-47% of land 4/n #Kadvanchi
Focus was on soil conservation and optimum use of resources. Farmers have left villages and leave on the farms in spacious homes. Village of 400 households has 430 tractors, innumerable motorcycles and 25+ cars 5/n #Kadvanchi
Houses on the farm and all weather Doppler system which also wirelessly gets soil moisture 6/n #Kadvanchi
The master plan, trenching and afforestation, check dam 7/n #Kadvanchi
Kadvanchi village employs 500 farm labour from outside (mostly MP and Bihar) and pays out Rs 8 cr as wages! Employment generation! 8/n #Kadvanchi
Village has 370 such ponds on the farm - each farmer having his own pond. And their are clear plans of how much land to cultivate based on rainfall. 9/n #Kadvanchi
All the farmers are upbeat and continuously investing from earnings to further improve their income. Since the farmers employ outside labour, they have plenty of free time to think about further development 10/n #Kadvanchi
I suggested to the Sarpanch that they can start agro tourism and have some rooms on Airbnb. He told me he will do it in a planned manner and won’t hesitate to invest 50-70 lacs for this. Will build separate rooms!! 11/11 #Kadvanchi
