India, says Mayank Gandhi, can wait no more. This is the man who is credited by the villagers of Parli for taking one of India’s driest areas on the path to self-sufficiency in water. His ‘Global Parli’ project, centred in Beed district in Maharashtra’s Marathwada region, has now extended its model to ‘Transform India’ across hundreds of villages in the suicide-prone region.
The main objectives Gandhi lists are a 20-fold increase in farmer income, planting 3.2 million fruit trees, increasing the water table from 400 feet (122 metres) to 70 feet (just over 21 metres) and completing ‘360-degree village development’. Ambitious, but so was Mission Global Parli when he launched it in 2016 as a one-man initiative. Local and corporate support has since worked wonders.
“We have around 700 volunteers now to help and support our nation-building solution,” says Gandhi, who was a corporate executive-turned-politician, but quit the Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) of which he was a co-founder. In a WhatsApp message which he asks people across sectors and geographies to ‘forward to all your groups’ he points out that this will reach out to lakhs.
Marathwada has been blessed with excellent rains this year; and water management has changed the lives of the people, he says. Taking full advantage of social media, he launched the new movement at noon on 15 August this year, followed by a live Instagram discussion with film actors Richa Chhada and Ali Fazal, who have 2.8 million followers between them. “Please also share my FaceBook, Twitter and LinkedIn messages,” he exhorted his supporters, calling for a one-hour ‘Twitter storm’ that evening. “Let’s all tweet about the steps which can transform our nation from the roots to give our farmers freedom from poverty, misery and distress!”
-
Plant more trees to save the world
