‘Rain man’ of Indian journalism makes sure wells stay full

By Frederick Noronha, IANS

Bangalore : Shree Padre calls himself a "farmer by profession and a journalist by obsession". For a decade, he has been studiously collecting and documenting information about rainwater harvesting.


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Padre, 52, a resident of Vaninagar in northern Kerala, is founder-editor of "Adike Patrike", a 19-year-old magazine "by, of and for" farmers in the Kannada language.

He has also headed a movement called "Krishikara Kaige Lekhani" (Pen to Farmers) that trains hundreds of farmers to write about their experiences.

Padre is an Ashoka Fellow and has received many awards in journalism including the prestigious Statesman Award for Best Rural Reporting in 1997.

One of his recent books on the 'tankas' of Gujarat throws light on one of India's lesser-known traditional roof water harvesting systems.

Padre has also built up an impressive collection of slides and photographs on the subject.

He has done studies on unique traditional water harvesting systems like surangas (man-made caves for collecting water) of Kasaragod in northern Kerala and madakas (traditional percolation ponds) of coastal Karnataka as well as Kasaragod.

"Rainwater harvesting is the only sustainable solution for water scarcity. Rainwater is like a blank cheque. You deposit it in mother earth's bank during the monsoon, it acts as an ATM in summer," Padre told IANS.

He believes that unless we start depositing rainwater, we won't be able to draw water even for our basic needs — it is like a bank transaction.

Padre has so far published 10 books on rainwater harvesting, one in English and nine in Kannada. He has been documenting success stories of rainwater harvesting and drought-proofing from different parts of the world.

"Criterion for selection of success stories is that it should be low-cost, done without government subsidy and the method used should be replicable," he said.

Padre disseminates information on rainwater harvesting through his column on successful methods of water conservation (165 so far). He has held 450 slide shows on rainwater harvesting for farmers group, urban communities and school children.

"In between 2002 and 2005, I have travelled for around 30,000 km in Karnataka for the awareness campaigns. The title of the campaign was 'Neerimgisona Banni' (Come, let us recharge the ground water, in Kannada)," he said.

Drought proofing is his latest area of study. He fought on the frontlines of the Endosulfan pesticide poisoning in Kasaragod district, which he sees "next in magnitude only to the Bhopal gas tragedy".

He believes that water conservation efforts can be successful. "It depends on the extent to which you can make people aware of the problem and right solution, and to what extent people's participation comes forth.

"When I decided to learn about rain water harvesting more than a decade ago, unfortunately people-oriented methods were by and large unknown or less known," he said.

At that time, government officials were talking about checking the river flow, big dams, concrete check-dams and big interventions that no common man can achieve easily.

"Once we came in touch with alternative groups, the right kind of information started flowing in. Then I thought water is the foundation of life. 'Jal hai to kal hai.' (If you have water, you have a future)," he said.

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