Rajendra Singh

Conservation
the Magsaysay Award winner

Rajendra Singh (born 6 August 1959) is an Indian water conservationist and environmentalist from Alwar district, Rajasthan in India. Also known as "waterman of India", he won the Magsaysay Award in 2001 and Stockholm Water Prize in 2015. He runs an NGO called 'Tarun Bharat Sangh' (TBS), which was founded in 1975. The NGO based in village hori Bhikampura in Thanagazi tehsil, near Sariska Tiger Reserve, has been instrumental in fighting the slow bureaucracy, mining lobby and has helped villagers take charge of water management in their semi arid area as it lies close to Thar Desert, through the use of johad, rainwater storage tanks, check dams and other time tested as well as path breaking techniques. Starting from a single village in 1985, over the years TBS helped build over 8,600 johads and other water conservation structures to collect rainwater for the dry seasons, has brought water back to over 1,000 villages and revived five rivers in Rajasthan, Arvari, Ruparel, Sarsa, Bhagani and Jahajwali. In the UK he is a founder member of an NGO called the Flow Partnership which aims to counter the negative effects of soil erosion and flooding.

Rajendra Singh was born at village Daula in Bagpat district in Uttar Pradesh near Meerut. He was the eldest of seven siblings. His father was an agriculturist and looked over their 60 acres of land in the village and where Rajendra did his early schooling. An important event in his life came in 1974, when he was still in high school, Ramesh Sharma, a member of Gandhi Peace Foundation visited their family home in Meerut, this opened up young Rajendra's mind, to issues of village improvement, as Sharma went about cleaning the village, opened a vachnalaya (library) and even got involved in settling local conflicts; soon he involved Rajendra in an alcoholism eradication program. The river was awarded the `International River Prize', and in March 2000, then President, K. R. Narayanan visited the area to present the "Down to Earth — Joseph. C. John Award" to the villagers. the urgency of groundwater recharge for maintaining underground aquifers and advocating community control over natural resources. In 2005, he was awarded the Jamnalal Bajaj Award. He also played a pivotal role in stopping the controversial Loharinag Pala Hydro Power Project over river Bhagirathi, the headstream of the Ganges River in 2006, even as G. D. Agrawal, environmentalist from IIT Kanpur went on a hunger strike. In 2009, he led a pada yatra (walkathon), a march of a group of environmentalists and NGOs, through Mumbai city along the endangered Mithi river. On Jan 2014, he did a parikrama along the banks of Godavari river, from Trimbakeshwar to Paithan to urge people to make the river pollution free. Recently he gave lecture on water and its conservation and values of water at Atomic Energy Regulatory Board, Mumbai. The struggle for the life and devoted water conservation efforts of Rajendra Singh is being produced by the film producer and director Ravindra Chauhan under the name of the documentary Jal Purush Ki Kahani. His active participation at BIPARD Gaya for 2nd CFC's on 05th of April 2024.

In 2001, Ramon Magsaysay Award for community leadership in 2001 for his pioneering work in community based efforts in water harvesting and water management. In 2005, Jamnalal Bajaj Award for Application of Science and Technology for Rural Development. In 2008, The Guardian named him amongst its list of "50 people who could save the planet". In 2015, he won the Stockholm Water Prize, an award known as "the Nobel Prize for water". In 2016, he was bestowed with Ahimsa Award by Institute of Jainology based in UK.