A 14-village federation in Marathwada is quietly rewriting the rules of groundwater

No NGO. No app. A handwritten register, a community well-meter, and a rule that nobody irrigates sugarcane without the gram sabha's vote.

Pranav Joshi

May 12, 2026·9 min read

Photo · Beed district, Maharashtra

Beed district, Maharashtra · May 12, 2026

The register is kept in a steel almirah inside the panchayat office at Hivare Bazar.

The organisation is the Pani Samiti Sangh — the Water Committee Federation — of fourteen villages in the parched basalt country of Beed district.

The well does not belong to one man. The water inside it does not, either.

Pranav Joshi

Field reporter for SouthPulse, covering politics from Maharashtra. Focuses on ground-level accountability and community-led governance.

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