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: Teacher Inspires Planting of 25,000 Trees, Community Saves 23 Crore Litres of Water #IndiaNEWS #Maharashtra In 2010, Bhaktaraj Garje, a native of Ahmednagar in Maharashtra, moved to Kulalwadi in Sangli

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Teacher Inspires Planting of 25,000 Trees, Community Saves 23 Crore Litres of Water #IndiaNEWS #Maharashtra
In 2010, Bhaktaraj Garje, a native of Ahmednagar in Maharashtra, moved to Kulalwadi in Sangli district to take up a job as a primary school teacher. But his enthusiasm for his first job and motive to groom the future generations soon waned out.
There were two dilapidated classrooms and 97 students with a decreasing interest in academics, as they hardly attended school. “They remained absent for 6-8 months in a year, and it became difficult to follow up with the lessons and complete the syllabus on time,� he tells The Better India.
Despite his efforts to urge the students with innovative teaching methods, their attendance remained low.
Little did he know that the answer to his problem lay in planting trees and harvesting water.
Reconnecting with nature
Trench digging by villagers of Kulalwadi in Sangli.
When he dived deeper into his quest, Bhaktaraj realised that it was the water scarcity and migrant worker parents of students that hampered the education of his students.
However, over the past decade, he has taken concerted efforts to unshackle the villagers from the bonds of drought by conserving crores of litres of water every year and boost agriculture production to bring prosperity to the village.
“The region falls in the rain shadow region and receives about 300 mm of annual rainfall. The water shortage compelled the villagers to migrate with children and work as farm labourers in other parts of the state for their survival,� the 33-year-old says.
With only eight trees on the school premises in 2011, Bhaktaraj started planting saplings on the campus. He also taught his students the importance of trees in the environment and encouraged them to follow the practice at school and home.
“We planted 1,000 trees until 2016. A major boost came when the Paani Foundation, an initiative of Bollywood actor Aamir Khan, announced the ‘water cup competition’ to encourage water conservation in the village. I then urged the villagers to participate in the same. The members of the foundation explained the guidelines and conducted workshops,� he says.
Bhaktaraj says that some villagers became convinced and decided to support him. “Villagers started contributing money and slowly started volunteering by digging trenches, building boulders, small check dams and other water conservation structures to arrest rainwater,� he adds.
The villagers completed work to store 2. 3 lakh cubic meters equivalent to 23 crore litres of water. “One bout of rain could save and percolate crores of litres of water. We also planted an additional 3,500 trees in barren land around the village,� he says.
Bhaktaraj Garje with plantation at primary school in Kulalwadi, Sangli.


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