In 1985, a 28-year-old man from Uttar Pradesh quit his government job, left his family and arrived in the dead of the night at a small village in Rajasthan's Alwar district.
Rajendra Singh, along with four companions from the Tarun Bharat Sangh, a non-profit that traces its origins to the University of Rajasthan, wanted to work in the hinterland. The initial idea was to establish clinics.
© Tarun Bharat Sangh Singh has brought water back to some 1,000 villages.
"Rajendra Singh did not insist with the clinics," the Stockholm International Water Institute, which awards the prize, said in a statement. "Instead, and with the help of the villagers, he set out to build johads, or traditional earthen dams. Two decades after Rajendra Singh arrived in Rajasthan, 8,600 johads and other structures to collect water had been built," it observed. "Water had been brought back to a 1,000 villages across the state."