everything is picture perfect in Mahur village, about 75 km from Pune in Maharashtra. Acres of marigold and lilies in full bloom, teak trees and a variety of crops conceal its unpleasant past. This huge tract in the Western Ghats was, till the mid-1970s, barren and untended. Even vast expanses of tended lands did not guarantee a harvest worth talking about. Then Vilasrao B Salunke, then a young engineer who owned a factory manufacturing precision instruments in Pune, stepped in.

With the help of the villagers, Salunke not only brought water to the parched lands, but also instilled confidence and the will to survive among the people. He set up Gram Gaurav Pratisthan ( ggp ), a voluntary organisation, to prove a simple fact: success can be achieved with very little resources. Today, ggp is involved in 55 waterharvesting projects in 25 villages of Pune.
The genesis A severe drought hit Maharashtra in 1972. In Purandhar taluka (block), thousands of people had migrated to the cities, where survival was no less an ordeal. The government, as an alternative, employed thousands of people as stone-cutters.

Curiosity led the young engineer to the drought-prone areas. "I saw people breaking stones under the harsh rays of the sun, but I could not understand the connection between the drought and stone-breaking,' he says. Salunke went to the commissioner of Pune with the query. The commissioner failed to provide any answer. The same question was put to the stone-cutters. He was met with blank stares.

Salunke then asked the villagers what they really needed. "The reply was