Chennai

Conveying this to DT Next, he said that the aim behind the initiative was to ensure adequate water for drinking and agricultural purposes during the summer and hence a brainstorming session was conducted for officials and farmers, which led to the idea of creating farm ponds. 

Started with the guidance of PWD minister EV Velu, the scheme soon caught the attention of many as the work progressed with daily monitoring. “It costs Rs 1.78 lakh to create one farm pond of 72 feet long, 36 feet wide and 5 feet deep,” Murugesh says, adding, “as each pond can hold 3.64 lakh litres, we soon found that the 1121 such water bodies set up on private farmlands in 541 specially selected village panchayats can hold 40.69 crore litres, which will be more than enough to recharge local wells and also assure water for cultivation in summer.” 

Murugesh said the next move would be to seek farmers’ views to rear fish in their ponds which “will then be an additional source of income for them.” 

Officials, including those from the USA-based Elite World Records, the UAE-based Asian Records Academy, Indian Records Academy and Tamizhan Book of Records inspected the ponds in various locations and stated that “nowhere in the world were so many ponds constructed in different locations within 30 days.” 

The world record awards were handed over to collector Murugesh in the presence of SP Pawan Kumar Reddy and additional collector M Pratap.

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