Because water is valuable, and every water source should be harnessed, Laxman and his village volunteers have combined simple techniques for tapping every water route and pathway of human liquid wastes in a village – diverting them to through the village's natural watershed to directly agricultural plots and pasture lands. Village residents, who understand their terrain best, construct the diversions through simple conduits like canals, spillways, and aqueducts.
Water is stored in a network of community ponds, lakes, and earthen percolation reservoirs repaired or constructed by the villagers. Water is diverted from these networks and a separate grid of stop dams in pasturelands arrests runoff in large storage spaces. Embankments are wide and serve as roads. Active plantations along these embankments of local species have "regreened" villages and provided fodder to cattle.
All together, these efforts have been tested in an area of over 1,500 square kilometers. This work has attracted engineers, technologist, soil scientists and agri-economists from across Rajasthan. As many as 200 villages in Rajasthan are collecting funds to emulate the Laporiya experience. Many villages have tested design components that are specific to their locality.
Singh and his team have designed an architectural plan for pastureland development where mudbunds have been constructed in tandem with the heat absorption or temperature levels of different plots of land. This permits rain water to pool or deflect so that different mud embankments absorb different amounts water to promote diverse
varieties of grass (many of which have become extinct in Rajasthan) that
can feed different types of cattle in the village.
During the next weather cycle, new grass varieties grow by natural generation in the same plots to meet the fodder demand of villages that is specific to the season. This pasture land has been maintained for more than four years, and the experience has convinced several villages to rid their pastureland from encroachments while collecting funds to reenact the Laporiya design.
"Just by maintaining locale-specific pasture land design, communities can return nature her tools and her natural cycle to sustain human and cattle life," Laxman said.
Laporiya's projects were financed through community donations, voluntary labor, and outside funding from private donors secured by Singh. The system is maintained by village governing councils, with technical assistance from Laxman's organization, the Village Youth Service Association.
Strict fines were imposed against the cutting of trees, and each family was asked to plant at least five trees on their land. In two years, 300 hectares were irrigated, and 25 hectares of pastureland were developed. The water levels in the village wells rose to 15 to 30 feet, and soil runoff (erosion) has been reduced, due to the grass cultivation in pasturelands. As a result, out-migration from the village has slowed also and the cattle are no longer driven to distant locations for for fodder.
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