The Remarkable Journey of One Farmer’s Decade-Long Battle To Revive the Purna River & Save 6 Villages

On a late November morning, the Purna River slips past Thugaon-Pimpri, its waters calm after months of giving. Along its banks, villagers gather with quiet resolve, preparing to build yet another check dam. The steady hum of an earthmover cuts through the stillness as it lifts sand and stone, shaping a barrier meant to hold the next monsoon’s bounty.

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What appears to be a modest construction effort is, in fact, a story of resilience. Each dam is more than earth and rock — it is a promise of water security, a shield for crops, and a reflection of collective will. At the centre of this movement stands a single farmer whose determination has rallied his neighbours, showing how even small barriers can create deep reservoirs of hope.

A district in crisis

In 2018–19, Vidarbha’s Amravati district faced one of its harshest droughts in recent memory. Erratic monsoons scorched fields, shrank wells, and left cotton, soybean, and pulse crops stunted.

Tankers became lifelines, but they could do little to ease the despair. Families battled debt and migration; women queued for hours at water points while men searched for work in distant towns.

For farmers who had nurtured orange orchards for decades, the drought was not just about lost crops — it meant the loss of continuity, identity, and hope.

“Even borewells sunk 800 feet deep had turned dry,” recalls Amol Langote, a 49-year-old citrus farmer from Thugaon-Pimpri, a semi-arid village in Vidarbha with close to 3,000 residents.

“Farmers began uprooting their trees in despair. It felt like the end of who we were,” he says.

The farmer who refused to give up

Amid the despair, one farmer chose a different path. Amol Langote, an Arts graduate who grows oranges on 14 acres and cultivates cotton, soybean, green gram, and tur on another four, could not bring himself to watch his orchards wither.

Oranges in the region are often intercropped in their early years with cotton, jowar, or bananas — a practice common across the village’s 668 hectares of cultivable land. But repeated droughts had pushed this system to the brink.

As a teenager, Amol remembers groundwater surveyors explaining how the Purna River’s springs extended far beneath the land. The village had once built a small check dam through shramdan, but it was during the severe droughts of 2017–18 that its value became unmistakable.

In late 2019, when the Purna ran almost dry, Amol called a meeting at the Radhakrishna temple on the riverbank. Around 30 villagers gathered. Instead of spending heavily on festivals, he suggested pooling small donations to build another check dam. The idea found immediate acceptance.

Built with sand, stones, and collective effort, the dam began showing results within months. Wells that had run dry slowly filled again — and what began as a single intervention soon grew into a quiet, farmer-led movement.

Collective action, personal commitment

In 2019, the first dam rose, with villagers contributing between Rs 500 and Rs 2,000 each. The structure slowed the river’s flow, allowing water to percolate and replenish underground aquifers.

Encouraged by the initial results, Langote continued the work year after year, even when community enthusiasm waned. Driven largely by his own resolve, he now oversees the construction of nearly two to four check dams annually along the Purna’s stretch.

“I decided not to spend on cultural celebrations and instead used that money to build more check dams,” he says.

Since then, he has financed and supervised construction each year, spending around Rs 50,000 to Rs 60,000 annually. His commitment endured even when a devastating fungal disease wiped out much of his orchard, slashing his annual income from Rs 30–35 lakh to Rs 8 lakh.

Yet the results were unmistakable. Built during the low-water months of September and October, the structures trap monsoon flows in the riverbed, enhancing percolation through sand and gravel.

“Such dams convert transient surface water into long-term groundwater reserves,” explains Dr Ajit Gokhale, an expert in nature-based water restoration who has led similar efforts in over 300 villages across India.

Ripples across villages

Within two years, Thugaon-Pimpri’s groundwater levels began to rise. Wells that once ran dry by February now yield water until June.

“My borewell suddenly had water again — I thought it was a miracle,” says 52-year-old Vinodaro Band, a farmer from nearby Jassapur. “Only later did I learn about Langote’s check dams.”

Neighbouring villages — Nimbhora, Kodori, Jassapur, and others downstream — soon felt the impact. Today, six villages directly benefit from the network of check dams rebuilt along the river each year.

According to former Krushi Adhikari Falguni Nainir, the check dams typically last a year before breaching or silting, but their annual rebuilding ensures continuity. “We need more people like Langote — those who think beyond themselves and act for the community,” she says.

Lessons for a drought-prone region

Langote’s initiative shows that resilience need not rely solely on government schemes. His approach — local materials, community pooling, and consistent upkeep, led by individual initiative — demonstrates how simple interventions, pursued with persistence, can transform water security.

Even small structures, rebuilt year after year with sand and stone, can revive riverbeds and rehydrate aquifers. The lesson runs deeper still: that climate resilience in Vidarbha begins not with technology alone, but with the will to work alongside nature.

A river, restored — and a future reclaimed

Today, as the Purna once again glimmers across the fields, it carries more than water. It carries faith — in collective effort, in small beginnings, and in one farmer’s unwavering resolve.

And each time Amol Langote stands by the check dam as monsoon clouds gather, he knows the river he once held back is now holding up the future of six villages — proof that individual action, sustained over time, can reshape an entire landscape.