Every weekend, the Kharmale family ascends the sun-baked hills of Junnar, Pune, armed with spades, shovels, and an unshakable mission. Ramesh Kharmale, a 49-year-old ex-serviceman turned forest guard, digs contour trenches to trap rainwater, while his wife, Swati, clears invasive weeds from ancient Shivaji-era stepwells. Their children, Mayuresh and Vaishnavi, scatter seeds into freshly dug pits—tiny acts of defiance against a warming planet.

“Conservation is my passion, but it’s also my duty,” says Kharmale, whose 17-year Army stint forged his discipline, now redirected toward healing the land. After brief careers in banking and education, he found his true calling in 2021: a solo crusade to combat water scarcity atop the Khandoba Temple in Dhamankhel. Timing the project to his birthday, he spent 300 gruelling hours over two months carving 70 trenches into the mountainside. “Every morning, I would spend four hours on the mountaintop digging the water-absorbing ditches and then report for work,” he recalls.

These serpentine trenches, totalling 412 meters, can store approximately 8 lakh litres of rainwater per season, significantly boosting groundwater levels. “With adequate rainfall, the system could recharge up to 16 million litres of water annually,” Kharmale notes.

But his vision extends beyond water. The family has planted over 450 trees, with 500 more planned for the trench-lined slopes. Each summer, they haul water up the hills to shield saplings from vanva (forest fires). Since 2013, come June, before the onset of the monsoon, the family treks to the Sahyadri range to disperse seedballs. “Our mission to make Junnar’s tourist spots completely........

© The Better India