The project aimed at mainstreaming groundwater concerns in Bhuj and integrating decentralized and community based groundwater management into the town’s planning and development. The interventions involved both social processes and technical processes. On the social front a cadre of para professionals and community representatives having knowledge on urban watershed and groundwater management was created and citizens’ action group was created to enable their participation.

The unprecedented spread of the COVID-19 virus has presented a threefold crisis worldwide – public health, economic and socio-psychological; a truly population scale problem. The reverse migration triggered by the sudden announcement of the lockdown in India poses a huge challenge for the scores of migrant workers trying to get back to the safety of their homes in their native villages.

In the wake the COVID-19 Pandemic, Samerth Charitable Trust is working to provide relief and rehabilitation in the Khadir Region of Kutch, an island sharing a border with Pakistan and comprising 14 villages with semi-arid areas in the north-west corner of the island and covered by the greater rann of Kutch. The people living in these villages belong to Koli, Parkara Koli, Muslims, Ahir Koli and Bharwad communities.