Meet Ramveer Tanwar, the inspirational 26-year-old engineer from Greater Noida, India who has brought 10 ponds back to life.
While finishing his last year of university in 2013, Ramveer became concerned about his region. It had suffered 13 droughts in the space of 15 years!
India is facing the “worst water crisis in its history”, according to a June 2018 report by government think tank NITI Aayog. Up to 200,000 people are dying annually due to a lack of access to clean drinking water.
He couldn’t stand the thought of his country’s lakes and rivers being ruined by pollution and drought, so decided to take matters into his own hands.
Speaking to NDTV, Ramveer said the his local community were concerned about the region’s shrivelling water resources.
“People must stop disposing waste in ponds and lakes and encroaching upon them, as this is gradually pointing us towards the end of groundwater resources in India,” he said.
“I had been talking to the kids in the village back then and even they felt that they had to do something about the dying water resources.
“When they tried talking to their parents, the adults refused to believe that there could be any such thing as ‘lack of water,’” he added.
Since his community were so unaware of dying water resources, the first thing he did was go door-to-door to educate all the residents.
Some other keen students from his university joined forces with him to discuss what they could do to revive their dying rivers and lakes.
Word soon spread of Ramveer’s good deeds. People started to clear out their water supplies of trash and planted trees around the perimeter of the water to protect its shoreline.
Just look at the difference!
Ramveer and his friends even created their own double water filtration systems out of grass and wood. This helped to limit the mount of trash polluting the water.
In just five years, Ramveer and his team have revived 10 lakes across Greater Nodia, and word has spread to 50 neighbouring villages too!
The government of Uttar Pradesh has even caught on to his success! They kickstarted a initiative, led by Ramveer himself! It sends “Groundwater Army” conservation groups to each state’s district.
Even five years on, Ramveer works extremely hard—his determination and work ethic is admirable.
He often works six long days a week and forks out his own money for the government program due to their lack of funding.
But this is all secondary to Ramveer—all he wants to do is save India’s lakes and rivers.
“After hearing about what Ramveer has done at our village pond, a lot of other villages have shown interest. Some people even want to do the cleanup themselves now,” Bharana village resident Pawan Khatana told the Times of India.
Keep up the good work, Ramveer!
Credit: Good News Network