Kuttamperoor River Rejuvenated And Brought Back To Life By Community

Scoop Whoop

If you took a look around and saw just how much pollution has destroyed so much of nature, your heart would bleed. It’s sad to see how people were left to do their own devices and throw trash where these shouldn’t be thrown. Because of this, much of what was once beautiful have been destroyed.

Then, there are also communities that know what their responsibilities are and actually do something about it. It’s always heartwarming to see people come together to clean up after themselves and fix what they destroyed.


As is the case with a once-biologically dead river located in Southern India. It was extremely dirty and it had been left for dead. Recently, the river has been revived to the fullest extent, thanks to the local dedication and the involvement of the government.

As a tributary of the Pampa and Achencoil rivers, the 4-mile-long Kuttamperoor River has for centuries been a source of life for the people in the area. This was the drinking water of the rural communities located in Kerala. The river was also more than that. It served as irrigation for more than 2,000 acres of rice paddy as well as a lifeline for the 500 fishermen families there. In fact, the Kuttamperoor River played a crucial part in the local community.

Unfortunately, after three decades of a what is a mix of misuse and neglect, the river became biologically dead as it was left choked with weeds with the garbage thrown into the waters.


As a result, floods that were once rare became a common thing during rainy season. By 2005, the sorry state of affairs on the Kuttampreroor eventually led to the contamination of groundwater sources, something that hindered the livelihoods of the community around.

Well, those problematic days are over because there was a collaborative effort between the Kerala state government and the Budhanoor village council. They got together and inspired the locals living along the banks to participate in the cleanup process, and in time, the Kuttamperoor was once again brought back to its former glory.

In order to do this, they gathered a large number of workers under the Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee scheme. The people went to the shallows to scoop out the tangled mess of aquatic weeds and trash. Then, 7,000 villagers from the three communities gave around 30,000 hours of work to finish the initial cleanup and they were able to rejuvenate the waters in just 2 months.

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After all the work, they needed to still do more. So, the state government in Kerala on the southwest tip of India took the lead and created the right conditions so that life in the river comes back. What they did was work side by side with the denizens of the river, who donated some parcels of their land to plan and expand the river’s banks.

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After a total of five years and around $1.5 million (₹13 crore), fish and other animals were found to once again live in river. In fact, so successful were they that the flow width had also grown from a few dozen feet to around half a football field in length.

The Hindu reports that the success they were able to achieve should be the textbook example of restoration. The news made national headlines when Prime Minister Narendra Modi also talked about it in a national radio address, also known as the Mann Ki Baat.

 

 

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