सावित्री ज्योतीराव समाजकार्य महाविद्यालय, यवतमाळ
Cost effective field based soil and water conservation technique for the dry land farmers.It is since the establishment of the social work institute in 1993 theThe college is working on this need based issue for the following reasons.
Yavatmal district is prominently an agrarian district. In spite of the major to minor irrigation projects in the district no less than 93% of the fields are the dry land fields.The field lands are mostly undulating because of the hilly terrain in most of the parts of the district.In the above context soil conservation is the badly needed component. The Yavatmal district is ill known for the farmers suicide because the food productivity is very low as compared to the adjutant districts. Realizing the importance of soil and water conservation the Students of social work are trained in barefoot watershed technology. The students help the farmers understand that the soil conservation
is a crucial issue and very little technical know-how can serve the purpose. The administration assessment scale PRAMAN (Participatory and Reflective Analytical Mapping for Accountability towards Nature) helps them in understanding the gravity of the problem. It is praiseworthy to note that the students with the help of local
NGOs in the last 25 years could conserve soil on about 1500 Ha. Of field Land. In the said process the students and the Prof. Dr. Avinash V. Shirke could evolve a modified appropriate field based technology with the help of Pragati Bandhu Group dedicated for Participatory Technology Development.Today this technology is known as SMART (Segmented Multi utility Absorbent Regulatory Trench Bund and Recharge Pit/ water
Absorbent nano Tank) technology for the dry land farmers. The field implementation of the said technology has started taking place with the involvement of local NGOs and impact assessment studies have been undertaken by the institute. The preliminary findings of the study shows encouraging results and the said technology of Recharge Pit is now accepted under the MREGS Program of Yavatmal District.