Kozhikode: To fight the severe drought that the district is facing, nearly 20 of the female members under the Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Scheme (MGNREGS) are digging ponds in their panchayat - Kuttiady. And they promise that in the coming year, they would dig at least two ponds in each ward of their panchayat. Currently, the women, 10 in number, are busy digging a pond that is 6m long, 6m wide and 4m deep in the 14th ward of the panchayat. The work is expected to be completed in the next four days. They were also planning to dig three more similar ponds this season, said panchayat secretary J.D. Babu.
“The project comes under the water resource making and water resource maintaining scheme. In some parts of the district, wells were dug by an all-women team and we took it up as a model. This is the first of its kind, when an all-women team is digging ponds to preserve the groundwater level,” said Mr Babu. These women were taking nearly 170 hours to complete a well on an average and this duration depended on the terrain, Mr Babu added.
