A local female-led water revolution in India is making waves

Lalitpur/New Delhi, India — In the semi-arid landscape of Bundelkhand, a region straddling India's Uttar Pradesh and Madhya Pradesh states, a group of women are leading a quiet revolution in water conservation. Known as “Jal Sahelis,” or female friends of the water, these women are at the forefront of efforts to combat the region's pervasive lack of water. Bundelkhand, home to approximately 18 million people, has long grappled with water scarcity. The region has experienced drought 13 times up to 2016, with rainfall declining by 60% between 2013 and 2018, according to research by the 2030 Water Resources Group. This scarcity has led to widespread migration and agricultural distress. To address this problem, in 2011, Sanjay Singh, of the local NGO Parmarth Samaj Sevi Sansthan, set up the Jal Saheli program. The initiative aimed to empower women to take charge of water management in their communities. Today, there are around 1,530 Jal Sahelis across 321 villages in Bundelkhand. "When funding for such projects stop, they lose their significance, but Jal Sahelis kept expanding. Jal Saheli isn't a project anymore, it has become an approach to life for thousands of women," Singh, who holds a doctorate in sociology, told Devex. Becoming Jal Saheli Draped in a sky blue sari, 35-year-old Seema Yadav walked me from her house to the well in Sarkhadi village in Uttar Pradesh, where we sat in an open green field under a shisham tree. Before becoming a Jal Saheli in 2019, Yadav's life revolved around the daily struggle of fetching water from a well 1.5 kilometers from her home. She remembered having to carry large vessels on her head and in her hands and doing several runs to the open well throughout the day to cater to her family’s water needs. “Water has never been enough for us,” Yadav recalled, describing the hardships faced during peak summer months when the well would start to dry up. Yadav’s story isn’t unique or rare, as the majority of women in the Bundelkhand region bear the burden of the ongoing water crisis. Under the Jal Saheli program, women from different villages join as volunteers, get trained in water conservation efforts, learn about water management and government-led schemes, and advocate for sustainability and water retention. Yadav underwent training in water conservation techniques and she has since created a network of women in her village and overseen the construction of seven dams and numerous earthen embankments around farmland. This has significantly improved water retention and prevented soil erosion in her village. “Earlier, a lot of people had migrated from our village to nearby cities because of water scarcity. We didn’t know how to retain rainwater as water would flow out making it difficult for us to do any kind of farming,” Yadav shared, adding that she learnt the technique of earthen embankments at one of the Jal Saheli meetings. These embankments have helped to revive farming and stopped at least 50 farmers from migrating to cities to find work, she explained. Farmers now grow pulses, peanuts, millet, corn, and even rice, which require more water than other crops to grow. Rajpal Singh, a farmer from Sarkhadi, commended Yadav’s efforts to build earthen embankments around his farm, which helped him return from the city of Jhansi, some 130 kilometers away, where he had migrated to find work. Now he cultivates his land in the village. “Seema broke the barriers that cage other women in the village. I’m very happy that she became a Jal Saheli and is helping farmers like me come back and farm on our lands here which have been lying unused because of the acute water shortage in our village,” Singh said. Breaking barriers Yadav’s journey wasn't without challenges. She faced initial resistance from her community, with men and women alike criticizing her for “ruining the culture of the village” by attending meetings and working alongside men. Yadav explained that men would say to her: “Khud toh bigdi hain, hamari auraton ko bhi bigadegi,” meaning, “She herself is ruined, and she'll ruin our women too.” However, as her work began to show results, attitudes shifted. The local village council also supported her application to become a supervisor as part of the national employment scheme, the Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Act, or MGNREGA. Yadav now earns about 400 Indian rupees ($4.79) per day as a MGNREGA mate, supervising local development projects. This is a significant increase from her previous earnings of 140 rupees ($1.68) per day as a construction worker when she had moved to Jhansi for work. Not only has her daily wage increased, but she also makes more money than her husband, who earns 240 rupees per day ($2.87) as a daily wage laborer. “I’m very happy to have got this work and it has only been possible for me after I became a Jal Saheli. It opened me up to people from my village and a few nearby villages as well. Now everyone knows me and respects me for who I am. When I went to Jhansi to work — it paid me in monetary terms but I didn’t gain any respect doing construction work,” she told Devex. Currently, of the 1,530 Jal Sahelis, 31 are working as MGNREGA mates. “Today the Jal Sahelis are working in water governance to make their villages water-sufficient. They are in it because of the sheer importance that this initiative gives women keeping them at the forefront with no direct monetary benefits. This work gives them a voice and uplifts them as a leader of their village,” Singh explained. Government recognition and scaling up Parmarth received funding from the European Union under the Establishing Women's First Right to Water project in 2011, when they introduced their Jal Saheli initiative in three districts of Bundelkhand. They also joined hands with German organization WeltHungerHilfe to continue their Jal Saheli work in two other districts of Bundelkhand. The success of the Jal Saheli program has caught the attention of both state and central governments. In 2021, Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi praised Jal Saheli’s Babita Rajput for reviving a lake in her village. Another Jal Saheli member, Ganga Rajpoot, received the Water Warriors Award from Indian President Draupadi Murmu. The United Nations Development Programme also awarded the group the Water Champion Award in 2021. Other state governments are setting up women community-based workers programs for sustainable water management. India’s Water Resources Ministry runs the Atal Bhujal Yojana scheme, set up in 2019, whose goal is to improve groundwater management. Under that scheme, the northern Indian state of Haryana has already incorporated a Bhujal Saheli (community resource person) program this year. “The government has taken inspiration from the Jal Saheli initiative to start the Bhujal Saheli program across the country,” Singh said. Uttar Pradesh’s Jal Sakhi Yojana scheme, set up in 2023, is also inspired by Parmarth’s Jal Saheli initiative. Under the Jal Sakhi Yojana scheme, women community workers are responsible for ensuring proper functioning of water supply systems, reporting water-related issues to higher authorities and promoting awareness about water conservation and hygiene. As part of the benefits, Jal Sakhis get paid up to 6,000 rupees ($71.55) monthly. According to a top official of the Jal Jeevan Mission in Uttar Pradesh, given the success of the Jal Saheli program, “there's no harm in drawing inspiration from such a program that enabled women at a large scale.” In 2017, Parmarth introduced the concept of Pani Panchayat, or Water Councils, among Jal Sahelis, allowing them to participate in governance surrounding water-centric initiatives in their villages. A holistic approach to water management In 2019, the same year the Atal Bhujal Yojana scheme launched, the Modi government set up the Jal Jeevan Mission, or JJM, scheme to provide safe and adequate drinking water through individual household tap connections by 2024. The Jal Saheli initiative works in tandem with JJM to incorporate operations under the national mission in their villages. They actively bring up water-centric issues in their village councils, who then inform the officials higher up in JJM, to try to solve these. However, the implementation of government schemes like this one has been uneven, as groundwater scarcity remains an issue. In Kotara village, Jal Saheli member Khusbu Raja has been fighting for several years to get tap connections installed. “We have had pipelines laid out in our village for the tap connection under the JJM mission for three years now, but no one has come to install the taps because there is a lack of groundwater in our village,” she explained. Broader water conservation and sustainable management initiatives like Jal Saheli are therefore key to connect the local level with national schemes. As climate change continues to exacerbate water stress in regions like Bundelkhand, such grassroots initiatives offer valuable lessons for policymakers and development practitioners alike. The success of the Jal Saheli initiative highlights the need for integrated approaches that combine water conservation with women's empowerment and livelihood generation. As governments and international organizations seek solutions to water scarcity, the Jal Saheli model provides a compelling example of how local knowledge and leadership can drive transformative change. As for Yadav, she sees the Jal Saheli initiative not only as a path to sustainable water management, but also to female empowerment. “Women working as a collective like we do as Jal Saheli can achieve anything that they set their eyes to. When I meet other Jal Saheli, I hear from them how they fight patriarchal notions in their villages, it reenergizes me. I feel like I can do anything,” Yadav shared with confidence.