The project team convinced the Gujarat government and private sector actors around the village to finance an opportunity to demonstrate the results of NRWM programme. This liaison and negotiations took more than 18 months, but finally funding was allocated to develop the NRWM programme at a larger level for up to 20,000 USD.
Shree Someshwar Education Trust and Devram International first conducted surveys of the allotted village, namely Kavas in the district of Surat, India. They identified strategic locations in the village where they could get natural slopes of streets. This identification helped to locate the spot where they needed to build ground water recharge systems with minimal cost. The team also surveyed the permeability, soil structure, salinity of the village's soil and ground aquifers. After all the relevant data collection and surveys, project started gathering materials and professional labour like plumbers, blacksmiths, equipment etc. for implementation. With the help of the village's head administrator, team was able to mobilise villagers in their free time, which helped us with cost reduction.
Then they started building 3 groundwater recharge systems and 12 rooftop harvesting systems for the village. The said systems and devices were enabled with function to protect against contamination. Conserving or recharging rainwater without making it free from various contamination (physical, bacterial, and chemical) would have been detrimental. Achieving balance of odour, colour, PH and TDS of rainwater was also a challenge. But the groundwater recharge systems and RHW Filters were developed with 12 different layers of filtration, before diverted rainwater reach to the cisterns or aquifers.
Each phase of development was supervised by government engineers. Project team had to submit photos and videos of the development regularly along with a written report to these engineers.
Shree Someshwar Education Trust and Devram International also trained farmers in the village on making "organic fertilizers" and "organic pesticides" at home. The said organic fertilizer is a natural paste made of animal wastes and some vegetables which are freely available in village. The said natural paste helps in reducing salinity from soil and also encourages the role of earthworms in soil's moisturization. Earthworms are natural drillers, who drills soil regularly which helps in conserving rainwater within the farm. This natural paste helped in enhancing natural groundwater recharge along with redeveloping soil biodiversity.