SEPTEMBER-OCTOBER 2007 Edition

 

 

 

 

 

CHEWANG Norphael makes artificial glaciers so that farmers can get water when they need it. He is a retired engineer from Leh in Ladakh. This area gets only 50 mm of rain. For irrigation, farmers would depend on melting ice from the Himalayas.

But by the time water from the ice-melt reached their fields, it would be too late. Farming was becoming a losing proposition in Ladakh since farmers didn’t get water on time. With no work, young people migrate for jobs. In 1986, Chewang conducted his first experiment to solve this problem. He planned to create 'artificial glaciers'. The canal water from the foothills of the Himalayas was diverted with the help of a check-dam and made to spread in a sloppy area with the help of galvanised iron pipes in winter.

The outflowing water froze and got blocked in the lower area where Chewang had already constructed big contour walls with local stones. He had made his first ‘artificial glacier’. This artificial glacier melts before the icecaps of the Himalayas as temperature here rises earlier. And so the fields below get timely flow of water. Chewang has built more than 30 artificial glaciers in the last 20 years. The Leh Nutrition Project has supported him.

His artificial glacier at Fukets is 100 feet long, 150 feet wide and 4 feet in height. It has cost Rs 90,000. This is sufficient for a village of 700 people. If a cement tank has to be built to store one cusec of water, it will cost Rs 80 to 90 lakhs. An artificial glacier costs just Rs 80,000 to Rs 90,000.

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