Profile: Jagdish Meghwal, Village Jhakolai

Profile: Jagdish Meghwal, Village Jhakolai

Structure feeding his well: Taal ki nadi, with astorage capacity of 106,532,200 litres.

Jagdish owns 10 bighas (approximately 3 acres) of land. Before the construction of Taal ki nadi, his farming was entirely dependent on the monsoon, and he had at best one harvest in a year. Jagdish has now moved to his field with his wife, children and grand children (13 in all). Noticing that Taal ki Nadi had filled, last year he bored a well 215 ft. deep on his land. They struck water at 100 ft.

Last year he had two harvests, plus the summer harvest of vegetables and fodder (Lucerne). His winter harvest included 4000 kg of wheat that he had harvested for the first time in 35 years. His winter harvest also included mustard, barley and chickpeas. The monsoon crop had pearl millet, mung, sesame, moth (Turkish gram/vignaaconitifolia). His agriculture is entirely organic and dependent on animal dung for fertiliser. He has 1 buffalo and 20 goats that provide milk for the family.