In Molga village in Madhya Pradesh’s Sehore district, a six-acre lake that once ran dry now brims with water, feeding acres of soybean fields through sluice gates. The turnaround is the work of women — dozens of them — organised into a community water user group under Indian conglomerate ITC Ltd’s watershed initiative.

The company’s integrated water stewardship programme has established over 5,800 women-led water user groups spanning 17 states, covering 1.89 million acres and benefiting more than 500,000 people. The model centres on a straightforward principle: give women governance over local water, and communities thrive.

“We used to face a lot of difficulty in getting water earlier,” said Vimla Malvi, a water user group member in Sehore. “I had to carry two pots on my head for long distances. After getting involved with ITC’s water user group, there has been a lot of positive change.”

Women now oversee maintenance of more than 36,900 water structures — ponds, canals, and check dams — built under ITC’s programmes. Their involvement has ensured equitable water access for marginalised households, where scarcity has historically fallen hardest.

Beyond infrastructure, ITC’s Krishi Sakhi programme has trained thousands of women as agriculture service providers, promoting drip and sprinkler micro-irrigation and climate-resilient farming. Nearly 200,000 women farmers are part of ITC’s agricultural ecosystem. The company said its water-use efficiency drive enabled potential crop water savings of nearly 1,700 million kilolitres in 2025–26 alone.

“In inclusive water user groups, women play an active role in decision-making on how water is managed, maintained and shared, ensuring ITC’s interventions are not only equitable and sustainable but also scalable,” said Prabhakar Lingareddy, Executive Vice President, Social Investments, ITC Ltd.

The programme has helped ITC maintain a water-positive status for over 23 consecutive years, while also operating river basin-level interventions across five major sub-basins.

The initiative aligns with the United Nations’ World Water Day 2026 theme — “Water and Gender” — carrying the message: “Where water flows, equality grows.” Advocates say ITC’s model demonstrates that empowering women is inseparable from solving the global water crisis.

Time freed from water collection has flowed into income-generating activities, with women joining micro-enterprises and self-help groups supported by ITC — compounding the social return on what began as an environmental intervention.