The Better India · 8 days ago

How Ias Manish Bansal Led the Sot River Revival in Sambhal, up | Success Story

When IAS officer Manish Bansal arrived in Sambhal to find the Sot River reduced to scattered puddles and farmers planting crops on what was once flowing water, he confronted a peculiarly modern loss-the disappearance of a lifeline so complete that people forgot it had ever existed. The 110-kilometer river had vanished not in a single dramatic act but through the slow erosion of collective memory and the creeping logic of encroachment, leaving communities trapped in a cycle of depleted groundwater and monsoon floods where natural drainage once flowed. Through patient survey work, encroachment removal, and the humble labor of MGNREGA workers desilting the riverbed, the administration restored what had been erased-yet Bansal insists "the administration can only play the role of a facilitator, but it is only when the community becomes the protector of its rivers that they can remain rejuvenated." His words carry the weight of a deeper truth: that resurrection, whether of rivers or hope, requires not just technical expertise but sustained devotion from those who will live with the consequences of remembering or forgetting. The project reveals how quickly absence becomes normal, and how much intentional effort it takes to make the invisible visible again.