Sriperumbudur residents gather to save dying water bodies

Bala Prakash (30), an entrepreneur who grew up in Sriperumbudur, said that the increased instances of flooding led a group of volunteers to team up. “We realised that the problem was in the way we were treating our water bodies, by letting sewage into it. That prompted us to clean up the Chellaperumal Nagar pond,” he said. The process, however, was far from easy. “We realised that 25 Irula families were living inside the pond. There was a drive by the local administration and an NGO to build toilets for 500 families.

This saw construction of 10 toilets inside the pond area, which we objected to. After taking this up with the officials, the structures were removed and the families living inside the pond were shifted temporarily to a vacant land nearby. But the pond restoration, in the longer run, can reduce the impact of flooding in the area and the families, we hope, will realise this,” added Bala, who is a part of the group Friends Affiliation for Social Service (FASS), which is undertaking the restoration.

With the suburban areas like Sriperumbudur rapidly developing, the local waterbodies face similar challenges like those in Chennai, said environmentalist Arun Krishnamurthy. “There are so many lakes and ponds in the Kancheepuram and Tiruvallur belt, which are neglected.

Around Sriperumbudur, there are 47 different lakes and ponds.

These waterbodies will face the same problems faced by those in Chennai suburbs today,” said the founder of EFI, which had restored four more waterbodies around Sriperumbudur.