Meet Tamil Nadu engineer Nimal Raghavan who has restored 142 lakes in India

foreign [Music] six kilometers away from the capital city of Chennai in ramnath District villages in are very happy today today there is a man who's promised them that this water body that you see behind me will be revived this and I'll introduce you to the 35 year old animal raghavan who has been going on the Venture of protecting and Reviving lakes in the state of Tamil Nadu and across the country nimal is on to his 145th Lake Project in keny Career Town in ramanathapuram the lake which residents in the region say tasted like amritam elixir has for the last 15 odd years not seen any water with a small white bottle in her hand 57 year old T sairabanu has come to the event she wants to make the officials who come to her Town taste the water that she gets at home taste it she says to demonstrate the hardness in the salinity of the water foreign [Music] thank you [Music] foreign Lake restoration project which is approximated at RS 12 to 15 lakh is mostly crowdfunded the excavator for the restoration has been sponsored by nanban foundation and the project is expected to be restored for the second week of April this year nimbled an engineer by qualification returned from Dubai where he was working to his village nadium in peruvarani town in the thanjavur district to build his dream home a three-story building but the gaja Cyclone that hit the state on November 16 that year not only wrecked havoc in the lives of the people in the Delta region of the state but also changed the course of life for nimmel who was then 30 years old that time only we got to know the actual problem that is the water's cat scene 100 TMC of water is being sent into the sea from the kaveri River Basin because there is no sufficient water bodies to store them says Nimble so talking about this issue can you explain more about it because 100 EMC of water is like really huge and you were saying that the requirement for a city like Chennai would be way way less than that right yes so actually uh the concept is we need what we need a place to save water so if the water body is like this yeah we can't say water it has to be like this then only we can save water but all the water bodies here in Cavalry almost all the water bodies are either enclosed or it's not maintained property so as a result what happened we are unable to save water in the water body so each and every water body is interconnected also each and every water board is connected with the main source of water which is GA Canal Grand Anakin canal his first project 565 acre periculum was in his hometown of Pera urani a team effort of similar like-minded individuals with the help of crowdfunding villages support and at a cost of approximately rupees 27 lakh the lake was restored the before images of the region shows a completely empty Barren land but now the lake has abundant water Pond herons flying around and more importantly the lake is capable of integrating more than 6000 acres of land in the region the groundwater level 2 has seen a rise from 300 to 400 feet to now the groundwater level is at 60 feet around 140 kilometers from district and here is where nimmel had restored his 142nd Lake the lake which is spread across just three acres of land stands as an example of the change the color Village panchayat Leader's husband 52 year old samiyapan was on ground working along with nimul's Team to get the lake restored foreign foreign cycle [Music] [Music] nimal's Vision to restore Lakes has also been supported by several good samaritians who come as sponsors he also has his own Foundation Mega foundations and is associated with xnora International bio to soil Foundation the Tamil Nadu state budget announced by Finance Minister palinive allocated rupees 258 crore under the Tamil Nadu irrigated agriculture modernization project for repair renovation and restoration Works being undertaken in 309 tanks in the rural development scheme the Finance Minister has set aside rupees 800 crore for renovation of 10 000 water bodies in areas consisting of minor irrigation tanks ponds and uranis Oliver water only Warfare speaking on your Friday if we take water to your placements then the whole ecosystem will change now I am doing project in Jammu I am doing project interplace I'm going to start projects in Kenya also next week so the journey like continuous so so I don't think I can go back even there is no there is no way so wherever there is a demand for water I go I work I get water nimal who says his journey will continue till the time there's a lake that needs restoration adds that his perception of a home change with the cyclone and similarly people who have witnessed the lake restoration nimmel says change their perception on how to respect water bodies see suppose if I am restoring a lake in a village area means I'll rarely see a plastic inside the sand I rarely see sand inside Plastics that's totally opposite even for 10 15 feet if it again and again and again Plastics will come so plastic is everything in my mind is our mother at or responsible that's it it's our responsibility to take care of her mother it's our mother right who is going to take care of us has been a state which has been in water wars with Karnataka and Kerala but people like nimble say that if Tamil Nadu focuses on saving and restoring its water bodies then the huge crisis of water can be averted they also say that every individual in the country should think about a way in helping mother nature and what better way than to save every droplet of water to ensure that life goes on well senior assistant editor for the print foreign [Music] [Applause] [Music]

Channel: ThePrint

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Id: gZL70RNLyEU

Length: 9min 22sec (562 seconds)

Published: Tue Apr 11 2023