The gram panchayat built 40,000 contour trenches around the hills to conserve rainwater. Ten lakh trees were planted. Bans were implemented on grazing on agricultural land, on digging of borewells and on planting water-intensive crops like bananas and sugarcane. The village also banned liquor, advocated the one-child-per-family norm and spruced up education.

The number of wells increased from 97 to 217, irrigated land went up from 120 hectares in 1999 to 260 hectares in 2006. Last year, the yield from onions alone was Rs 1.5 crore.

“Ours is the first village in the country to initiate a water audit,” said Pawar, who had been invited to Tokyo two years ago to present a paper on watershed projects and will now go to Turkey for a world conference on ground water management.

There’s more: crime rate is zero while literacy rates have shot up. Since 2002, HIV testing has been made compulsory for anyone getting married. Almost every family has a person in service—in the army, as a teacher or with the government. There has been no migration from the village in the last 10 years.

“Why would anyone want to migrate when the village offers a much better quality of life today,” asked 49-year-old Kashinath Padhiye, who was mockingly called ‘Sahukar’ by villagers till a decade back for doing any work asked of him as long as he was paid Rs 30 for it. Today, he owns 31 acres, a new house and an annual income of over Rs five lakh—and can rightfully lay claim to the title.