Badku belongs to a schedule caste family in Maudaha Block of Hamirpur district, Uttar Pradesh. With just one hectare of land in a drought-prone region, Badku was forced to work as a daily wage labourer. But with 10 mouths to feed in his family, life was hard. He had to do something to break out of the shackles of poverty — and he had to do it fast.A field guide from BAIF development Research Foundation told him about a project called, Comprehensive Development of Cluster of Villages. The project, supported by Oracle and OneStage, works in multiple domains such as, livestock, agriculture, horticulture, natural resource management, vegetable cultivation and community health.

Soil and Water management is one of the important theme of the project. Under the theme, various kind of works like; farm pond, farm bunding are being done in the project area. It was through this project that Badku learned of a way to increase his income. Badku was told about the benefits of a farm pond and how he could utilize his land to cultivate fish.

Badku agreed to have a pond dug up in a 30m x 30m x 2m piece of land. Soon the on-ground team created a farm pond in his patch of land.

The farm pond harvested 1,500 m3 rainwater during the monsoons. Badku put 1,000 Catala seeds, 1,000 Rohu seeds in monsoon season. The harvest was good. Badku says he can now earn a net income of around Rs 50,000 through the pisciculture alone. He says, “Now this pond will eliminate my poverty.”