India lives in villages and it has 649481 villages. The ground water table is going down in most of our villages. It is said that if third world war is fought it will be fought for water. To improve water table village ponds can help a lot.

These ponds can be used for drinking water for the cattle and at times it can be used as irrigation of land. Ponds can also be used for fish farming. If we decide to have an additional pond of 5 hectare in each village built with the MNREGA scheme in the coming year and put it to use for fish farming. It can boost fish production of 9.7 lakh tonnes per annum taking an average of 3 tonne per hectare.

 Taking an average price of Rs 200 per kg it will be additional revenue of Rs 19400 crore to village panchayats.

Even if the fish are to be used by panchayats for serving to the students in mid-day meal scheme free of cost it will improve the health of the students. A 5 hectare pond can give 15000 kg fish per annum and 300 kg of fish per week to the school can be sufficient to be served to 1500 children once per week. This quantity can be adjusted as per the number of students in the village schools. This will go a long way in improving the health of children in times to come.

The ponds will also help recharge ground water and a source of water for cattle and irrigation.