Overview
Bharatiya Jain Sanghatana (BJS) has been in the forefront of addressing national concerns in the areas of Disaster Response, Social Development and Educational Initiatives since it was established in the year 1985 and has achieved scale uncommon to most social sector bodies in India.
Having its head office in Pune, BJS is a non-political, social impact Organization (NGO) with a nationwide footprint, working towards the benefit of all keeping aside the barriers of caste, community and religion. It works by creating practical solutions based on experience and needs of the affected population, converting them into workable model interventions.
BJS has contributedin all major disasters across India since 1993. To alleviate the adverse impact of drought prevailing in Maharashtra, BJS conceptualized a unique drought-mitigation model in 2013, ‘Maharashtra Duskal Mukt Abhiyaan’. Over the years, this model has evolved into a high-impact, multi-stakeholder program – Sujalam Suphalam– that helps transform water-deficient districts into water-sufficient ones. This model has been successful in creating 9,600 crore litres of additional water storage capacity in past three years by excavating 9.6 crore Cu.M. of silt accumulated in water bodies over several decades.
The Sujalam Suphalam program piloted in Buldhana in 2018 created a milestone in alleviating the grim drought situation in that district. It was then scaled to four districts of Maharashtra viz. Akola, Latur, Osmanabad and Washim. Subsequently, after a review, NITI Aayog requested to scale the program to Raichur and Yadgir in Karnataka. Sujalam Suphalam received the prestigious SKOCH Award in 2019; and the Elets Water Innovation Award in 2020 by the Jal Shakti Ministry, Government of India for its work in Yadgir.
