Water conservation initiatives transform rural communities
SORENG, SIKKIM: For generations, the villages of Karthok, Malbasey, Singling, Budang and Mangsari have lived at the mercy of the mountains. Rainfall comes hard and fast, then disappears. Streams swell in monsoon and run dry by summer. Farmers watch their fields crack.
Families walk long distances for clean water. The hills, for all their beauty, have never made survival easy.
That is beginning to change
On World Environment day, Supported by SBI Foundation and implemented by AROH Foundation, a sweeping programme of water conservation, sanitation, and environmental restoration is quietly reshaping daily life across the Soreng cluster. No grand ceremonies, no overnight miracles - just the slow, steady work of building infrastructure where it has long been absent.
It started with something as simple as a pit in the ground. Forty-two soak pits, constructed across the five villages, are now helping rainwater seep back into the earth rather than washing away down hillsides. For 168 people, that means better water under their feet and cleaner surroundings above ground. At Mangsari School, composite pits are managing waste for over 120 children and teachers.
At the local Pranami Mandir, more than 150 devotees no longer have to worry about where wastewater goes. And at Tharpu Primary Health Sub-Centre, sharps pit now ensures that used needles and medical waste are disposed of safely, a small intervention that protects over 1,600 people from invisible but serious risk.
Then came the tanks. Two water storage units, each holding 10,000 litres, now stand in Budang and Karthok, silent but vital sentinels against the dry months. More than 58 households no longer have to wonder whether the water will run out. In the hills, that kind of certainty is worth more than it sounds.
For the farmers, the change came through the canals. Irrigation channels in Mangsari and Budang, long neglected and broken, have been restored and strengthened. Over 128 farming households can now water their fields more reliably, wasting less and growing more, a quiet economic shift with consequences that will compound over years.
Perhaps the most ambitious piece of the puzzle is the check dams. Built along the boundaries of Malbasay, Budang, and Mangsari, these sturdy structures do what the mountains once could not, hold water back, let it sink in slowly, and keep the soil from sliding away. More than 1,100 households stand to benefit, not just from better water, but from land that stays where it belongs.
And then, there are the trees. Four hundred saplings, planted across Mangsari, Singling, and Karthok as part of a Jan Van Plantation Drive, are taking root in soil that has seen too much erosion and too little shade. They will not make headlines. But in a decade, they will matter enormously to the more than 4,100 households who live in their shadow.
What is unfolding in the Soreng cluster is not a story about charity. It is a story about infrastructure meeting intention, about communities that have long been overlooked finally getting the tools to build something lasting. AROH Foundation and SBI Foundation have made local participation central to every stage of the work, ensuring that what gets built is not just useful, but owned.
The hills of Sikkim have always been unforgiving. But in Soreng, the ground is beginning to hold water again and with it, the promise of something more stable than hope.