Gujarat Farmers Bank Rainwater Underground for Dry Season

In Gujarat, the same water that drowns crops during monsoon season could save them months later. A system called Bhungroo is helping farmers solve both problems at once by banking rainwater underground.

Biplab Ketan Paul noticed the pattern after working with communities affected by Gujarat's 2001 earthquake. Farmers struggled with waterlogged fields during heavy rains, then faced drought when it was time to irrigate crops. He wondered if they could capture that excess water and save it for later.

Working with engineers and local women farmers, Paul developed Bhungroo, which means "hollow pipe" in Gujarati. The first working system was ready in 2004 after years of testing. The concept is surprisingly straightforward: move surplus rainwater off the surface and store it in underground aquifer layers until farmers need it.

Each Bhungroo unit starts with a small cemented pit that collects runoff during heavy rains. The water gets filtered, then flows through a pipe drilled up to 100 meters deep into the ground. Instead of flooding fields or evaporating, the rainwater sits safely underground. When the dry season arrives, farmers pump it back up for irrigation.

The system gets customized for each farm because soil types, rainfall patterns, and underground water conditions vary widely. That's where local knowledge becomes crucial. Women farmers help identify the best locations and manage the systems based on their understanding of the land.

Five women can form a Bhungroo group together, installing the system on one member's land and sharing the stored water. This approach has expanded irrigation access for women farmers who previously had limited resources. With water available through dry months, some women now harvest crops two or three times a year instead of once.

The Ripple Effect

The increased income and food security has reduced the need for families to migrate for work during dry seasons. More families can stay in their villages year round. The stored rainwater also helps reduce soil salinity in some regions, making previously struggling farmland more productive.

Bhungroo has spread beyond Gujarat to other Indian states and countries including Bangladesh, Ghana, and Vietnam. In 2007, the World Bank India Development Marketplace recognized the innovation. Naireeta Services, founded by Trupti Jain, has focused on keeping women farmers central to how the technology gets implemented and who benefits from it.

The system proves that sometimes the best solutions connect two problems instead of solving just one.