Click to play videoLeh: Ladakh -- to a traveller a place of immense natural beauty but to the people who live here, also a cold desert where survival depends on careful use of the sparse natural resources.
Like water.
That's where Chewang Norphel is making a huge difference in the lives of Ladakhis. Norphel, also fondly known as the glacier man, is a retired civil engineer who figured out a way to trap the waters which melt down the high mountains.
He turns them into chunks of ice - artificial glaciers - which in the summer irrigate the water-starved fields.
It’s an idea that struck him 20 years ago when he heard his people clamour for water.
“That time I had to visit villages whenever I went the main demand was the shortage of water. I had to thin day and night and one day, during the winters Ladakh is cold. So we wanted to take advantage of the cold. So I though during winter water can be stored in the shape of the ice,” he says.
Norphel knows his land well and its problems too. In Ladakh, there are little or no rains.
The villages are perched at a height and the rivers are too low. The high glaciers melt in June, but the sowing period starts months before.
The artificial glaciers were a solution to all this, located on the north side right above the villages at a height of 13,000 to 14,000 feet, their waters start melting during April-May. That’s the time when the farmers sow
“Fifty to sixty years ago we used to have huge glaciers here. They have been reduced now. Now they are on high peaks. Glaciers start melting in June, we want water in April May. Artificial glaciers are on low altitude and near village. So they ensure people get water at the right time,” says Norphel.
The first glacier was created in Phuktse Pho Village.in 1987. Then six more followed - all constructed with simple stone embankments at the cost of Rs 60,000 to Rs 90,000 – a simplicity that changed many lives.
But the glacier man now wants some changes like deep-rooted pipes to divert water which would cost more but sustain longer but the funds are not flowing in.
“Now I want o change the design. In the present design we have to engage labor for maintenance. But if we have pipes they would not require labor, main constraint is the funds,” he says.
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