Tinigharia depends on a spring that begins in another village. Keeping it alive meant Kankia protecting a hillside whose water flows to its neighbours. For years, rain falling on Kankia’s hillside ran quickly down the slope, leaving little time for the water to seep into the ground and replenish the spring below.
In January 2026, residents of Tinigharia approached Kankia and explained the problem. The two villages began discussing what could be done. Villagers also travelled to Gajapati district to see how other communities had restored their catchment areas. After returning, they agreed to build contour bunds across the Kankia hillside. Using simple tools, Sankar Mallik, Sukru Mallik and Sukanti Mallik, trained Jal Bandhus, helped mark the contour lines. Villagers gathered stones from nearby fields and built the bunds by hand. The structures slow rainwater as it moves downhill, giving it more time to soak into the soil and recharge the spring.
The work in Kankia shows why water security cannot always be planned one village at a time. Springs and their catchments cross village boundaries, and protecting them requires communities upstream and downstream to act together. This is central to the Water Secure Gram Panchayat programme: helping villages understand where their water comes from, identify the landscape that sustains it, and organise across boundaries to protect it.
Tinigharia’s spring flows through one village, begins in another, and now has both looking after its future.
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