The Art Of Bringing Rivers Back To Life

Since 2013, when The Art of Living River Rejuvenation Project began, more than 41 dying rivers in 4 states have been brought back to life. The transformation this has brought about in the lives of farmers and rural folk is a real eye opener

- Kalyan Subramani

Standing on the embankment, Mahadev Gomare, in La-tur, Maharashtra, is staring into the Gharni River with the pride of a mother looking at her child. As a local farmer with several generations of his family living off the land, the transformation of what was, until recently, a dry riverbed into a gently flowing river, is nothing short of a miracle. But Gomare knows that there was no miracle there. Back in 1993, Latur, Gomare’s hometown, shot to fame for all the wrong reasons when a devastating earthquake killed over 10,000 people. Misfortune continued to haunt the people of this ill-fated village. Drought like conditions for the last several years, failed crops, poor precipitation cycles, farmers suicides, limited incomes, debt impairment and unsustainable farming practices, cattle injuries...an endless list of tragedies wreaked havoc for a decade that followed the earthquake. But this spell broke in 2013.

The transformation of Latur from an arid and tragedy-prone land to one of relative prosperity with the promise of a better tomorrow started with one project -- The Art of Living River Rejuvenation Project that covers over 100 villages in Latur today. A small army of volunteers supported by the villagers have made these villages self-sufficient in meeting their water requirements.

Latur is but one story in what is now becoming a national movement in India’s first genuine and perhaps the most successful attempt to rejuvenate her dying rivers and their tributaries.

Of the 41 rivers and their tributaries that have been brought back to life, 28 rivers and their tributaries are in Maharashtra, 5 in Karnataka, 7 in Tamil Nadu and 1 in Kerala. Over 5055 villages and around 5 million people have benefited from this project cumulatively.