Rajendra Singh

Rajendra Singh (born 6 August 1959) is an Indian water conservationist and environmentalist from Alwar district, Rajasthan in India.

He became the leader of a local chapter of Chhatra Yuva Sangharsh Vahini, a student activism organisation founded by Jaiprakash Narayan (Magsaysay Award, 1965), though after Jaiprakash fell ill, the internal power politics disillusioned him.

Dr. Singh is a BAMS doctor by education.

An important event in his life came in 1974, when he was still in high school, Ramesh Sharma, a member of Gandhi Peace Foundation visited their family home in Meerut, this opened up young Rajendra's mind, to issues of village improvement, as Sharma went about cleaning the village, opened a vachnalaya (library) and even got involved in settling local conflicts; soon he involved Rajendra in an alcoholism eradication program.

Another important influence was an English language teacher in school, Pratap Singh, who started discussing politics and social issues with his students after class.

He runs an NGO called 'Tarun Bharat Sangh' (TBS), which was founded in 1975.

The NGO based in village hori-Bhikampura in Thanagazi tehsil, near Sariska Tiger Reserve, has been instrumental in fighting the slow bureaucracy, mining lobby and has helped villagers take charge of water management in their semi-arid area as it lies close to Thar Desert, through the use of johad, rainwater storage tanks, check dams and other time-tested as well as path-breaking techniques.

At this time Emergency was imposed in 1975, making him aware about the issues of democracy and formulate independent views.

After finishing high school education.

He enrolled for post graduation in Hindi literature, at another college in Baraut, affiliated with Allahabad University.

After completing his studies, he joined government service in 1980, and started his career as a National Service Volunteer for education in Jaipur, from where he was appointed to oversee adult education schools in Dausa district in Rajasthan.

Meanwhile, he joined Tarun Bharat Sangha (Young India Association) or TBS, an organization formed by officer and students of Jaipur University to aid victims of a campus fire.

Subsequently, after three years when he became General Secretary of the organisation, he questioned the organisation, which had been dabbling with various issues, for its inadequacy in having a substantial impact.

Finally in 1984 the entire board resigned leaving the organization to him.

One of the first tasks he took up was working with a group of nomad blacksmiths, who though traveled from village to village had little support from anyone.

This exposure inspired him to work closely with people.

However back at work, he was feeling increasingly frustrated by the apathy of his superiors towards developmental issues and his own inability to have a larger impact, he left his job in 1984.

He sold all his household goods for Rs 23,000 and took a bus ticket for the last stop, on boarded bus going into interior of Rajasthan, along with him were four friends from Tarun Bharat Sangha.

Starting from a single village in 1985, over the years TBS helped build over 8,600 johads and other water conservation structures to collect rainwater for the dry seasons, has brought water back to over 1,000 villages and revived five rivers in Rajasthan, Arvari, Ruparel, Sarsa, Bhagani and Jahajwali.

The last stop turned out to be Kishori village in Thanagazi tehsil in Alwar district, and the day was 2 October 1985.

After initial skepticism, the villagers of neighboring village Bhikampura accepted him, and here they found a place to stay.

Soon, he started a small Ayurvedic medicine practice in nearby village Gopalpura, while his colleagues went out about promoting education in the villages.

Alwar district, which once had a grain market, was at the time largely dry and barren, as years of deforestation and mining had led to a dwindling water table, minimal rainfall followed by floods.

Another reason was the slow abandoning of traditional water conservation techniques, like building check dams, or johad, instead villagers started relying on "modern" bore wells, which simply sucked the groundwater up.

But consistent use meant that these bored wells had to be dug deeper and deeper within a few years, pushing underground water table further down each time, till they went dry in ecologically fragile Aravalis.

At this point he met a village elder, Mangu Lal Meena, who argued "water was a bigger issue to address in rural Rajasthan than education".

He chided him to work with his hands rather than behaving like "educated" city folks who came, studied and then went back; later encouraged him to work on a johad, earthen check dams, which have been traditionally used to store rainwater and recharge groundwater, a technique which had been abandoned in previous decades.

As a result, the area had no ground water since previous five years and was officially declared a "dark zone".

Though Rajendra wanted to learn the traditional techniques from local farmers about water conservation, his other city friends were reluctant to work manually and parted ways.

Eventually with the help of a few local youths he started desilting the Gopalpura johad, lying neglected after years of disuse.

When the monsoon arrived that year, the johad filled up and soon wells which had been dry for years had water.

Villagers pitched in and in the next three years, it made it 15 feet deep.

These facilitated a rise in the groundwater levels and helped turn the area into a "white zone".

So much so that the Forest Department invited the NGO to take an active part in the park's management.

Also known as "waterman of India", he won the Magsaysay Award in 2001 and Stockholm Water Prize in 2015.

He is one of the members of the National Ganga River Basin Authority (NGRBA) which was set up in 2009, by the Government of India as an empowered planning, financing, monitoring and coordinating authority for the Ganges (Ganga), in exercise of the powers conferred under the Environment (Protection) Act, 1986.

In the UK he is a founder member of an NGO called the Flow Partnership which aims to counter the negative effects of soil erosion and flooding.

Rajendra Singh was born at village Daula in Bagpat district in Uttar Pradesh near Meerut.

He was the eldest of seven siblings.

His father was an agriculturist and looked over their 60 acres of land in the village and where Rajendra did his early schooling.