Getting people together for water conservation a challenge: Aamir Khan

Actor Aamir Khan has said that gathering people from villages to improve the water situation in Maharashtra was a huge challenge.

Aamir's Paani Foundation aims to impart knowledge and bring about a change at the grassroots level in Maharashtra about water conservation and watershed management.

"The biggest challenge is - people coming together. For example, water can only be stored in a pot which has no holes in it. Until human beings in a community, in the village, come together close (nothing can happen).

"If there are cracks in the society, the water will seep through. You have to remove all the cracks and then come together and then you will grab water," Aamir said in an interview here.

The 53-year-old actor added that the "biggest task is getting people together for this cause because society is fractured on many levels".

"... Politically, there are five parties in each village, we have different castes in villages, you have land owners... Some do not have land, some people have land close to the stream, some people have land away from the stream. We had to convince people that watershed management is actually going to help all of us.

"But certainly it's a challenge that has been overcome by the villagers themselves. We are just training them. That is the beauty of this idea. That the village does things on its own to solve the problem," he added.

At Paani Foundation, which was founded by Aamir in 2016, the team empowers villagers and gives them a sustainable solution for water conservation which is expected to help them for years.

"All the work will be done by the village. They will decide what is the area of their land, how many watersheds fall into it, what is the kind of work they need to do.

"So they make the plan and execute it. We just teach them how to do it. It is a demand-driven exercise. We don't choose villages, villages choose us."