Trickle Up India: The Lift Irrigation Song

It is as plain as any structure could be. A concrete block house on the edge of the Chaka stream, in the hamlet of Nimtalakuli, in the village of Majhihira, an hour's drive from the town of Purullia, which is a six-hour train ride from Kolkata. The block house has a corrugated metal roof, and the man who tends it has to bang the rusty handle with a hammer to open the door. Inside it is dark and damp, and all you can hear is the heartbeat of an eight-horsepower diesel pump. A green plastic hose leads to the pump from an eight-inch square hole in the wall of the blockhouse; the hose delivers water from the Chaka, and a second hose carries the water out of another opening on the opposite side of the building.

That's all it has taken to improve the lives of the majority of the 120 families who live in Nimtalakuli, which is among the poorest villages in all of India. The method, which uses the pump and gravity wherever possible, is called "lift irrigation," and has been so beneficial for the village, the lives of its inhabitants have changed dramatically ~ so much so that this Trickle Up project has been honored with a folk song.

Written and performed by Nibaran Mohato in Manjhihiri, a village in India.
Translated from Bengali by Maitreyee Ghosh

Lyrics:
It is the kindness of Jamgoria Sevabrata and Trickle Up
That they have installed the lift irrigation in Majhihiri.
They have also dug canals
And given goats, sheep and pics and pumpsets to the people of this hamlet.

The poor are so happy for that.
They bring the water from the river into their own land through lift irrigation
And less migration to Bargwan.

Even 60 years have passed since Independence.
There was no one to take care of the poor.
Now the poor have courage with the help of Jamboria Sevabrata and Trickle Up.
As the lift irrigation machine is lifting the water of the river
And that water is coming to the land.
And for that our land is getting enough water for crops.

And the sounds come out... kol-kol, kol-kol... with the flow of water,
Farmers are getting confident
And this water lifted by the machine
Has created the scope of cultivation by all poor farmers.
Kol-kol, kol-kol.

*Jamgoria Sevabrata is a community-based agency implementing the Trickle Up program in India.

Category:

Nonprofits & Activism

Tags:

• India
• poverty
• International development
• agriculture
• irrigation
• sustainability