IRS officer travels from Mumbai to help drought-hit farmers in Narayankhed

Dr P Sudhakar Nayak, a Mumbai-based IRS officer, spent seven weekends travelling to Narayankhed in Sangareddy district to guide the construction of community soak pits and ponds, helping improve rainwater conservation and groundwater recharge in the drought-prone region.

Sangareddy: To support the farmers in the parched Narayankhed area, Dr P Sudhakar Nayak, a 2014 batch IRS officer, had initiated the construction of four massive community soak pits and two community ponds in Peerla Thanda, Muktapoor and Pusal pad. In fact, Sudhakar Nayak, who was working as Joint Commissioner in the Income Tax Department, Mumbai, was on a weekend mission to support the farmers in one of the most drought-prone areas in the State.

After coming to know about the struggles of the farmers from this area through environmentalist Paladugu Gnaneshwar, the IRS officer had shuttled between Mumbai and Narayankhed by bus for the last seven weekends to ensure the structures were completed before the onset of the monsoon. With the support of NGOs and the Sangareddy district administration, which helped him utilise MGNREGA workers, Dr Sudhakar took up the initiative in March this year.

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Since the area had no water source and most of the land here was rocky, Gnaneshwar, a native of Narayankhed, told Telangana Today that the farmers were hardly making any profits from farming due to the lack of water. Since finding water is rare even after drilling bore wells, Gnaneshwar said the IRS officer, who made a couple of field visits initially, had decided to utilise rainwater to the maximum extent to improve the groundwater table.

He further said Dr Sudhakar would take a sleeper coach bus every Friday evening from Mumbai. He would arrive in Sangareddy the next morning, where he would hire a cab to reach the villages located about 100 km away from the district headquarters. The next 48 hours, the IRS officer would spend at the site along with the villagers, guiding the workers in building the rainwater harvesting structures.

Then, he would catch the bus again on Sunday night to resume his daily routine at the office on Monday morning. After seven weeks of work, he had guided the villagers in building four community soak pits and two community ponds. After studying the impact of these water harvesting structures after the monsoon, Dr Sudhakar and his team wanted to replicate them across parched areas of Sangareddy district, particularly in the drought-prone Narayankhed area.

With a single motto of utilising rainwater to the optimum, the IRS officer was also engaged in building community soak pits in schools, soak pits in residential areas and farm ponds in agricultural fields across the Narayankhed area.