By Shambhu Nath Choudhary
Ranchi, April 3 (SocialNews.XYZ) A newspaper article published 18 years ago on the water crisis made Sameer Ansari, a resident of Deoghar in Jharkhand, realise the importance of water in his daily life. He made a stern resolve that he would dedicate his entire life to spreading awareness among the people about water conservation.
In the last five years he has single-handedly dug a large pond with the help of a spade and a shovel in his own city.
He has decided that he will continue the digging work till the depth of the pond is 20-ft. This next to impossible feat and passion towards saving water has earned him a lot of praise from the people across the state.
On March 30, Union Jal Shakti Minister Gajendra Singh Shekhawat awarded him with the 'Jal Prahari Samman' during a programme organised in New Delhi.
Sameer Ansari told IANS about his long journey dedicating his life to saving water. He said after taking a pledge to save water, he began this initiative from his own house. He made a water recharge pit to prevent tap water from being wasted.
Arrangements were also made to transport rain water falling from the roof of houses with the help of this water recharge pit. Besides this, he would walk from one village to the other carrying a 'Save water' placard appealing to people to prevent wastage of water.
He visited hundreds of villages in Jharkhand, Bihar and Uttar Pradesh to spread awareness to save water for future generations. Several people also joined him in the mass movement to save water while others laughed at him.
The plight of the Darwa river passing through his city Deoghar used to make him angry. People throwing dirt in the river and then using the same polluted and toxic water would make him upset. On stopping people from polluting the river he would often be shamed and insulted. Several people told him if he has a problem with them, then he should find another river and pond for himself.
These words hurt Sameer Ansari so much that he decided to dig a pond near the Darwa river. The vacant land near the river was encroached upon illegally by encroachers. Therefore, he appealed to the district administration due to which the land was freed from illegal encroachment.
After freeing the vacant land from the control of encroachers, Sameer started digging a pond single-handedly and would wake up at 5 a.m. every day and would continue digging with the help of a shovel and a hoe till evening. His family members would send him food and water in the afternoon everyday.
He lives with his mother, wife and two children. During the initial days when he had started digging the people used to tell him how he ran his family by digging a pond all day long.
He has made a ration card in the name of his mother due to which he is able to eat food. He also performs small household chores by which he earns a reasonable income. His in-laws too lend him some help by which he is able to sustain his family.
Sameer says such problems are nothing as compared to the toil of digging a pond or building a dams and saving water. He is quite satisfied that he is dedicating his life to this humongous task. Quoting from the 'hadith', he said Allah also considers water as a great blessing.
He says that when he started digging, the people of the city and his own village would call him mad and used to laugh at him. However, he did not care to listen to them. His five years of hard work bore fruit when last year during the monsoon season the pond dug by him got filled with water.
People living nearby the pond used water to feed their cattle apart from other purposes. He is quite hopeful that during the monsoon this year there will be plenty of water in the pond.
He says that after his family members, one of his friends Azim Ansari encouraged him to dig a pond to save water.
Now many people believe in his passion and his words. On March 30 while he was invited to New Delhi to be honoured with the Jal Prahari Samman, he was also accompanied by his friend Azim Ansari.
Azim says, "If the work done by Sameer bhai of saving water is followed by even some people then undoubtedly it will be the biggest achievement."
Source: IANS
Gopi Adusumilli is a Programmer. He is the editor of SocialNews.XYZ and President of AGK Fire Inc.
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