Women of Malegaon , a small hamlet in the hilly region of Trimbakeshwar tehsil, have been relieved of a tiring two kilometre walk thanks to a drinking water unit that has been developed specially for them.On the occasion of Dr Babasaheb Ambedkar's birth anniversary, celebrated on Friday, the Social Networking Forum, a social and cultural group from Nashik successfully constructed a drinking water unit for the hamlet, 35km away from Nashik.The thoughtful move has helped around 2,000 people of the village from an impending water problem. Women and little girls who used to walk a distance of 2km and more to fetch water from a nearby well in the scorching heat are hopeful of a better and tireless summer this year.On Friday, senior citizens of the village Jijabai Magar and Jaya Kaule performed the worship of the water tank along with the members and participants of the forum.The project was a success due to two NRIs from Nashik, Rajesh Bakshi and Laxmikant Powanikar who helped raise funds for the project with the help of the forum."The Social networking forum produced the award-winning Marathi one-act 'Handabhar Chandanya' in Nashik last year. We had taken up an initiative to raise funds for the drought-hit people of the state when our play won the national and state awards. This mission succeeded only because of the villagers, our volunteers and donors," said Pramod Gaikwad, forum preisdent.Social Networking Forum was established by youths on a social media platform in 2010 to engage the young generation in various social tasks across the state. One of the important ongoing projects of the group is to provide good and enough drinking water to drought affected villages with the help of public donations and the corporate sector. The forum is working actively to raise funds for the drought hit people in the Nashik district."We seek the contributions from netizens to develop water supply measures in drought-hit villages. Last year, we made a permanent drinking water arrangement for Torangan. After Malegaon this year, we have also adopted six more villages," said Gaikwad.He added, "NRIs Rajesh Bakshi and Laxmikant Powanikar sent their contribution from Muscat and Qatar. The former students of Vidya Niketan, an iconic school of Nashik also contributed significantly, with the help of a WhatsApp campaign."The WhatsApp campaign was triggered by Jalgaon Municipal Commissioner Jeevan Sonawane and Bhopal IAS T Chandrakanth, who are also alumni of Vidya Niketan School. They raised an appeal in their respective school groups to for funds to provide water to Malegaon.Theatre for water: Last year, the Social Networking Forum produced an award-winning Marathi one-act play 'Handabhar Chandanya' based on the condition of drought-hit villages in Maharashtra. The play won accolades on several platforms. "As the play portrays the drought condition in the state, we have decided to help out the drought-hit people as our social responsibility. We had organized multiple charity shows of the play in Nashik, Mumbai and Pune. The three shows raised over Rs 4 lakh," said Gaikwad. Later, the forum used social media platforms like Facebook and WhatsApp to raise funds.

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