PROBASHI- A Cultural News Magazine Volume 2 Issue 2 | Page 33

Probashi-Cover Theme
did not stop, the YJA entered into
litigations right up to the highest
court of justice in the country,
against usurpation of the flood
plains. The High Court of Delhi gave
its ` was built at the proposed site.
The activists of the Yamuna Jiye
Abhiyaan realised that mere
resistance to encroachment of the
flood plains and pollution of the
river was not enough. There was
also a need to create awareness
and people’s participation at the
grassroots level for saving the river.
They put in place a blue print for
reviving the river by setting up Nadi
Mitra Mandalis (Friends of the
river), every 100 kilometres along
its course. Each Mandali covers
three to four villages. The role of
the Mandalis is to resist any activity
which would harm the river and the
riverine life and create awareness
amongst communities of their
rights and responsibilities towards
the river. Today through concerted
efforts of the Yamuna Jiye Abhiyaan
the Nadi Mitra Mandalis have
become self sustaining bodies. Nine
of the Mandalis have been
registered as cooperative societies.

Mangal Turbine : Where is the Applause

The other proactive initiative of
Yamuna Jiye Abhiyaan include
development of People’s River
Health Index, a tool for restoration
of threatened rivers of the Country
assessed by citizen volunteers, a
first time in the country.
The task of reviving a dying river is
both difficult and challenging. It
requires selfless perseverance,
undaunting effort, commitment
and endurance. We hope that
Yamuna Jiye Abhiyaan succeeds
against heavy odds to protect the
Yamuna and its flood plain from
commerce and encroachment. We
hope so because when the tradeoff is between profits and survival,
it makes lots of business sense to
vote for the latter.

Researched and written by the Probashi
Editorial Team, coordinated by Amit
Mukherji with inputs from Sudipto
Sengupta

Sample of Big Victories in the Small
villages along the
Yamuna through
Nadi Mitra Mandalis
Kharadi:
Strengthening
of
van
panchayat, green yatra, construction of
toilets, plantation, survey of bird life and
training manpower.
Katapathar: Catchment restoration,
organic farming, urja kendra for wind
energy, survey of birds, plantation and
river monitoring.
Kanalsi: Natural farming, river and
village health monitoring, waste water
management and organic resource
centre for farmers.
Ramra: Rainwater harvesting, bird
survey, monitoring of river and village
health, construction of ecotoilets and
plantation.
Oba: Waste water management,
plantation
for
river
restoration,
monitoring of river and village health,
and survey of bird life.
Gadaya: Waste management by putting
up dustbins and creating toilets,
restoration of wells, and plantation on
riverbed.
Hamirpur: Put up dustbins, encouraged
use of paper bags, pond restoration,
cleaning of drains and temple complex,
Cleaning of river.
Ekdala: Catchment restoration through
plantation, central drainage system, and
Dolphin watch centre.
Hamirpur: Put up dustbins, encouraged
use of paper bags, pond restoration,
cleaning of drains and temple complex,
and cleaning of river.

Mangal Turbine- Where is the applause?
We came across Shri Mangal Singh
in an excellent piece published in
the Hindu Newspaper (dated
04/10/2013). The narrative in its
first paragraph introduced Shri
Mangal Singh, the grass root
innovator from Lalitpur district,
Uttar Pradesh, who has devised a
turbine that runs on low water
head, thus saving farmers from
spending money on diesel and
electricity to lift water for irrigation.
The article further elaborated how

this innovation has potential of strongly. Mangal Singh’s invention
saving millions of litres of diesel finds mention in class X text book in
per year (or equivalent electricity). Madhya Pradesh and his patent
finds mention in the Limca Book of
Wow!
We said. This was Records.
something positive in the rather As we read on, we thought the next
dismal news of rapes and paragraph of the article would talk
corruption
which
fill
our of how the grateful nation would
newspapers. On further reading have felicitated and awarded this
we discovered that several experts remarkable grassroots innovator.
who have made on-the-site Our euphoria and feel good factor
inspections of the working of this was short-lived, for the treatment
device have recommended it meted out to Mangal Singh speaks
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