Chennai: Increasingly concerned about the state of the ponds in-and-around Pozhichalur, volunteers from the neighbourhood, have joined hands to give these a makeover.
According to sources, Sindhu, a resident, in association with a bunch of youngsters, started to clean the water-body near Kandedutha Karumari Amman temple, as a first step in the whole process. Activist Vijay Shankar gave the team the necessary guidance, it is learnt.
Speaking on this, Vasanth, a resident of Anbazhagan Street, says, “I remember swimming and bathing in this pond. Now, people don’t want to even walk near it. The residents here are the reason for its deterioration. Though garbage is being collected everyday, people continue to dump it in the water bodies.”
“We are planning to conduct meetings and raise awareness among the people in this regard,” he adds. “Right now, we have funds to manage only for a couple of days. There are lots of expenses like paying rent for JCB, labour charges and so on. We have limited resources, in terms of finance and volunteers. We want more sponsors who will help us in this noble cause,” says Sindhu.
On the other hand, Vijay, who got in touch with the volunteers via social media, says, “I’m surprised that a small locality has several water bodies. The capacity is incredibly high. All we need to do is clean and rejuvenate these to store water in the future.”
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