Karauli Foundation and the dams

The water shortage is mainly caused by climatic changes. A century ago jungle was dominating the area, now the area is dry and hot. Between December and June the temperature rises up to 50 degrees Celsius! And then, when finally the monsoon rains drop, the water runs away through the dry soil quickly. Livestock is under great pressure and more and more people therefore have to go to work in stone quarries or end up in the slums.

The government has stopped funding the dams, because there were good monsoons. Only when a disaster happens money becomes available again. And if support from the government is there, projects often become much more expensive and unfortunately the money flows lead to bureaucracy and corruption.

Karauli foundation, together with Krishna Chandra Pal, therefore focuses on building smaller dams in remote areas. Water becomes available again! Due to its familiarity with the area it can count on the enthusiastic efforts of local residents. He has been politically and organisationally strong in Karauli to improve local living conditions for many years. The local collaboration means a structural and social embedding of the projects and, last but not least, also a guarantee of effective use of the resources made available by us! The labour and material costs for the construction of a new dam are low. For € 8000 a dam of 50 meters long and a reservoir of seven meters deep can already be realized. Thousands of people are thus provided with water.

The lifetime of a new dam is about 35 years. The initiative of constructing a new dam comes from the residents and together with a local engineer they'll start the work. Under the supervision of the engineer, the new dam gets build using ancient techniques (earth and stones) This way, the people themselves will be able to maintain the dikes. A dam will be built in six weeks by a group of about 30 people. After three years the dam works at best (built sounded) and the water reaches the highest level. The residents are responsible for the maintenance of a dam and once in every five years the dam will be inspected by the engineer.