Maharashtra: Hills surrounding Kolwade in Ahmednagar to be renamed after Hermann Bacher

PUNE: State revenue minister Balasaheb Thorat on Friday announced that the hills surrounding Kolwade in Ahmednagar will be renamed The Hermann Hills in honour of Father Hermann Bacher, known for his water conservation initiatives and work for the welfare of underprivileged communities in Maharashtra.
Thorat said, “We are calling these hills The Hermann Hills since Father Hermann Bacher has worked extensively on watershed development programmes in this region, assisting farmers in improving the quality of life, and making water available.He has consistently urged people to plant more trees”.
The Swiss Jesuit priest came to India in 1948 to work with rural communities in Ahmednagar, which was then experiencing drought. Dedicating his life for the welfare of rural communities and regeneration of natural resources by identifying drought-prone areas and initiating integrated watershed management projects in various villages in Maharashtra, he conceptualised the bilateral Indo-German Watershed Development Programme in 1989, which evolved into the Watershed Organisation Trust (WOTR) co-founded with Crispin Lobo in 1993.
A Pune-based non-profit, WOTR engages at the intersection of practice, knowledge and policy across scales in collaboration with stakeholders from across sectors.
Bacher left India to return to Switzerland in 2008 after serving the underprivileged in rural India for 60 years. He passed away at the age of 97 on September 14 in a care facility near Zurich