64 years old Inyato Khatun hails from Andasar, a scattered village in the Bap block of Jodhpur district of Rajasthan. She is a widow who has 3 sons. She lives in a kutcha house with one of her sons who does labour work. She has struggled financially since her husband passed away six years back. 12 bighas of land and 16 goats are among her other possessions. Their primary household income comes from her son’s labour work while rainfed farming and livestock provide minimal revenues.

Earlier, Inyato Khatun did not own a Taanka. She collected water from the pond in the village. When the pond dried up, she had to walk 3-4 kms to meet drinking water needs of her family to the nearby village. It was extremely inconvenient for her to collect drinking water at this age in the scorching heat particularly during heavy wind storms. This affected her physical health a lot. With a smaller amount of water collected in the house, they had to compromise on the sanitation and personal hygiene such as by taking bath once a month. Her added difficulty was their economic condition. Her son rarely gets an opportunity for labour work. One fine day she attended the Village Development Committee (VDC) meeting in their village. She requested the VDC members for construction of Taanka. Considering her difficult situation, the VDC agreed on her economic inability to build her own taanka and unanimously decided to build taanka with the support of GRAVIS.