Chennai: Realising that cribbing about the water crisis is not changing anything, a bunch of youngsters have taken matters into their own hands.
For the last three weeks, the group has started to clean the Thiruneermalai lake without any form of help from the government.
“In the beginning, it was just us friends who formed a WhatsApp group with an aim to clean the waterbody, which has gone completely dry and was being used for dumping domestic and industrial waste,” says Silambarasan, one of them.
Calling themselves ‘Thiruneermalai Nanbargal Kuzhu’, they pitched in money and bought a few cleaning materials. Since machines like JCB could not be used easily, the guys decided to pick up the plastic and other waste.
Silambarasan says, “At the beginning, we did not know that will be a lot of response for this initiative. In the first week, it was just a few friends and in the very next, there were more than 10 to 15 people and in the third week, to our surprise, more than 20 guys joined in, including girls. Elderly people too contributed with legal and financial help.”
He further adds, “As of now, we have removed some garbage from the lake bed. But unfortunately in the second week, from the MEPZ compound, water was let in again. This made the lake bed soggy and we were not able to successfully organise the clean-up. But we are glad that we are getting attention and people are ready to help us.”
Kumaran, another enthusiast who is actively involved, states, “We are able to arrange for the finances within our closest sources and there are active neighbours and senior citizens who help us in obtaining permission from PWD for further procedures. We were inspired by those who cleaned the Chitlapakkam lake.”
Thiruneermalai Nanbargal Kuzhu can be reached at 97910 27914, 99529 00634.