Laxman Singh

Laxman Singh is the founder and secretary of the Gram Vikas Navyuvak Mandal Laporiya, a village organisation whose water-harvesting work became known as the Laporiya model. He was named for the Padma Shri in 2023 in the field of social work, from Rajasthan ^[1].

Drought and a village tank

Singh was born on 8 December 1959 in Laporiya, a small village in Jaipur district ^[2]. His parents sent him to Jaipur to study, but he could not settle in the city and came home while in the tenth standard ^[2]. At the time Rajasthan was in drought and his village was desperately short of water, so he set about repairing the village tank, persuading other young villagers to join him with voluntary labour ^[2].

The chauka system

He went on to develop the chauka system, a way of holding rainwater where it falls on village common land, built on local knowledge ^[2]. With his organisation, communities have restored about 10,000 hectares of degraded pasture, and milk production in the area has risen three to four times ^[2].

In 1987 he launched the Dharti Jatan Yatra, a campaign on caring for village commons that has run for 35 years ^[2]. More than 3,000 community groups now look after pastures, ponds, nadis and seasonal streams; groundwater levels have risen by two to three metres, green cover has grown several times over, and birds and wildlife have returned ^[2]. More than ten lakh saplings have been planted ^[2].

He received the National Youth Award in 1992, the Indira Priyadarshini Vriksh Mitra award in 1996 and was named an Ashoka Fellow in 1997 ^[2]. In 2020 the Ministry of Jal Shakti named his organisation the best NGO in the country for rainwater conservation ^[2].