alwar there was jubilation in various villages of this district where rajendra singhs tarun bharat sangh tbs was involved in building check dams various individuals and organisations have congratulated rajendra singh on being honoured with the magasaysay award among others who congratulated singh were sarvodaya leader shanti swarup data socialist hari shankar goel and president of progressive women organisation shuchi arya in bheekampura village the headquarters of tbs the organisations workers distributed sweets to the villagers on hearing the news through newspapers on tuesday morning rajendra singh had chosen gopalpura village to start his water conservation programme in 1985 his organisation started working from a small room in a hanuman temple in kishori village later the work station was shifted from kishori to an adjoining village bheekampura rajendra singh is known in the villages of alwar district as johad wale baba as he was involved in making johads earthen dams in 1986 village gopalpura was hit by drought and there was an acute shortage of even drinking water singh had then encouraged people to combat drought by building dams he asked people to contribute their mite both through cash and shramdan to build dams which could withhold rain water his call received attention of large number of youths who turned up at the dam site with spade and trowel to do the digging the villagers in alwar district were addicted to countrymade liquor rajendra singh took a vow that he would build the dams only in such villages whose people are not addicted to liquor then a number of residents of the villages keen to see a dam in their village gave up drinking the village gopalpura is located near thanaghazi and a number of villagers are tribals and belong to the meena community they were a poor lot and lived on agricultural income a drought would affect their agriculture produce and a family had to face great hardships as it would not have enough food they joined hands with rajendra singh to build the dam as a result of which the water level of their wells started rising the gopalpura dam once ready became a model and people from nearby villages started visiting to see the dam they requested rajendra singh to visit their villages and help in building similar dams he helped in building four more dams in mandabas village rajendra singh also spread awareness about conservation of forest to the residents living in and around sariska tiger sanctuary he coined a slogan in 1988 to save jungle jeev and jal he took out a rally to save the aravali range the padyatra started from himmat nagar in gujarat and ended in delhi in 1990 he started a campaign against illegal mining in the sariska sanctuary area and moved even the apex court to seek a stay order against illegal mining in 1991 the apex court passed an order to stop all mining activities in the tiger sanctuary thus there was a stop to mining in all