Help in de-silting of Nilona Dam

Nilona dam was built 40 year ago in order to supply water to Yavatmal. Gradually, storage capacity got reduced due to large quantity of accumulated silt leading to reduction of water supply to Yavatmal. Afterwards, Prayas took a pledge and carried out desilting project starting from April to June 2015. Team of 50 volunteers at Prayas, Yavatmal worked hard and removed 35,000 trollies silt and were given free to farmers of surrounding villages in order to increase the fertility of their farms. 12,000 citizens had visited Nilona dam for Shramadan. Citizens of Yavatmal contributed Rs. 25 lakh and remaining Rs. 11.43 lakh were provided by government of India.

For 2016, target of removing 1 lakh trollies silt has been set and will be distributed to farmers of surrounding villages for no cost. The actual work of desilting has been started on 6th March. Till now, 500+ trollies have been desilted. Our aim is to remove around 1000-1200 trollies silt per day. We will be spreading awareness in Yavatmal about proper water usage along with tree plantation and catchment area treatment so as to reduce the silt accumulation in future.

Citizens of Yavatmal have already taken the ownership of the project. The government of India also came forward to work with Prayas on this project. This became the PPP project model, which can be replicated anywhere. The fertility of agricultural field will get improved by use of silt and followed by increasing the farm yield. Also, awareness about proper use and conservation of natural resources will increase. Through awareness programs we intend to sensitize the cause and work on building capacity of our volunteers.