Pramod Deshmukh, 2010-11 Fulbright-Nehru Environment Leadership Program alumnus, used his network developed during his fellowship tenure to implement ‘Trickle to Stream,’ a project that conserves water and provides clean drinking water to 3000 beneficiaries in Sagroli village of Nanded district in Maharashtra, India. On his return to India after the fellowship, Deshmukh shared the problems faced by farmers in Sagroli and discussed various means of solving them and obtained support for its implementation from Kimberly Klark, a US based company which Deshmukh had got acquainted with during his tenure at Purdue University on the Fulbright-Nehru fellowship.

Deshmukh predicts that considering the average annual rain fall of the area, 280 million gallons of water can be conserved annually. A significant impact of the project was the increase in ground water levels that not only provided drinking water but also aided agriculture and fishery of the area. The project is promising for the state of Maharashtra in which several districts are reeling under drought.

Pramod Deshmukh (second from right) receiving an award from Pawan Kumar Bansal (then Minister for Water Resources, GoI) for soil water conservation in 2012