Constructing a Water Harvesting Reservoir at Ganol School and Village

KSLF is a not-for-profit festival and a literary experience that involves the community at large. KSLF isn’t just an avenue for authors and poets, but for the community as a whole to gather and spend time reliving Khushwant Singh’s vision and philosophy of encouraging the education of girl students to get closer to their career goals and to deeply care for nature and ecology, in particular in the region of Kasauli, a place he adored.

“My dad was passionate about life,” Khushwant’s son Rahul Singh has shared. “He loved the clean pure mountain air and spent many a night staring at the star crossed sky. Most of his writings took shape at his countryside home in Kasauli, giving him the soulful satisfaction of doing what he loved most and where he loved it most!” To continue his passion beyond words, the festival in his name, KSLF, took it upon themselves to devise and provide basic facilities in the Kasauli area.

“This is an environmentally fragile area with an acute water shortage. We knew we had to do something to preserve the ecology and continue Dad’s vision of educating the girl child.” Along with the team at KSLF and the Sir Sobha Singh Public Charitable Trust, a rainwater harvesting reservoir was introduced this year at a school in Ganol, near Kasauli. It has been challenging to build, as each time they reached a certain milestone, landslides disrupted the process. But the ‘never say die’ approach of Khushwant Singh lives on. “Easy would never have been worth it!” Rahul added. And with this mantra, the village school’s second headmaster Nishi Kant Uniyal has overseen the rainwater harvesting project and explains, “..in the rural area of Kasauli the much needed attention and extra care of the Khushwant Singh Foundation…has developed a rainwater harvesting reservoir of about 40,000 litres capacity. It will settle all issues due to water scarcity in the hill area.” Rahul Singh has said the school, due to its location, previously had a scanty water supply for the students. The Khushwant Singh Foundation and Sir Sobha Singh Public Charitable Trust undertook the water harvesting project, which is now nearing completion, and will start providing water to the school, and at a later date will also benefit the entire village with an additional supply of water.

These projects are supported by any profits generated from each of the festivals and via crowdfunding. For further details see https://kslitfest.com/crowdfunding/