ABOUT SADHANA

SADHANA Raichur is a registered voluntary organisation, regd under KA Society’s Act in 1995. It was conceived in 1995 after Mr. Sharanappa Barsi - the then prominent practicing advocate of Raichur Court felt that rural communities, despite being the target population of numerous large-budget national and international funding projects, were not really experiencing the kind of positive and life-changing impacts that they should have been.
Mr Barsi gave up his rewarding practice for the benefit of the society and associated with the SADHANA for full time working alongside the rural communities of Karnataka to implement projects that make a difference to the lives of so many families: families that had previously lived without hope of a healthy life.
Twenty years later with many sleepless nights & many more rewarding days have passed, SADHANA has grown stronger and stronger. Friends, Sympatheziers and Wellwishers have come on board, helping SADHANA to realise more and more dreams: not just those of SADHANA, but more importantly those of the children, parents, teachers and families in the rural communities where SADHANA are able to work.

HOW SADHANA WORKS

SADHANA prides itself on enabling low cost, low budget development activities to take place in the heart of rural communities of Karnataka. SADHANA works as much as possible with project community members and runs all its projects with very minimal administration costs.

All projects are conducted hand in hand with the local communities as well as the District Administration. This means the impacts are really felt in the rural communities that SADHANA supports. Schools and Communities make a contribution to every project that takes place such as sand, hardcore boulders and labour depending on the requirements of the project.

Schools and communities also form committees for every project to encourage participation, community ownership and effective, local management.

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In 2006 the Ministry of Panchayati Raj named Raichur with a Human Development Index of 0.54, one of the country's 250 most backward districts (out of a total of 640). It is one of the five districts in Karnataka currently receiving funds from the Backward Regions Grant Fund Programme (BRGF).
Nature has not been lavish with resources, and Raichur faces poverty, unemployment, and lack of health services.
The district is served by rivers Krishna and Tungabhadra on its north and south boundaries, and hosts the only active gold mine in India – Hutti gold mines. Along the banks of the rivers, bountiful rice fields are gradually transforming Raichur into the rice bowl of Karnataka. But major disparities are evident. They have not received the benefits of canals carrying river water, and people still rely on ground water for their domestic and irrigation needs.
The region’s longitudinal average rainfall is about 600 mm annually; further compounded by variability that disrupts farm planning, incomes and health. For instance, in 2009 the region received 1245 mm, whilst in 2012 it received just 411 mm. The predominantly black cotton soil in the region effectively prevents rain water percolation from recharging ground water sources. These are further depleting through continuous pumping of groundwater for agricultural uses. The water table is lowering, increasing salinity of soil and leaching out arsenic.
Semi-arid conditions of the district combined with poor natural resource management has led to a situation of widespread poverty and chronic food insecurity. This has seriously compromised health of the communities, making women and children highly vulnerable reflected in high Infant Mortality Rate (IMR) and Maternal Mortality Rates (MMR). Exacerbating the problems are the poor literacy rates that underscores the urgency to undertake steps to enhance the quality of life of the people with emphasis on meeting basic health care needs.