The clean-up campaign at Otteri Lake gathered momentum on Sunday with more than 100 volunteers joining the effort. Volunteers removed close to 65% of unwanted trees, and took steps to preserve the existing native tree species that were found on the lake.
Many volunteers, who came under the banner Change Vellore, had taken part in the protests in support of Jallikattu. They then decided to do something for the Fort City and came up with the idea to make Vellore clean and green.
The initiative took off on Saturday with about 50 volunteers, including college students, professionals and businessmen cleaning the lake bund. Their target was to remove the “seemai karuvelam” trees around lake during weekends and plant native trees such as palm, neem and “pungai” trees.
“On Sunday, nearly 125 volunteers came to the Otteri Lake to take part in the clean-up drive. We have removed 65% of unwanted trees including ‘seemai karuvelam’. Many persons called us over phone expressing interest in volunteering for the campaign,” Sathish Kumar, team member said. During the clean-up campaign, the volunteers found “pungai” trees, he said and added that they cleared the unwanted plants around these trees. They plan to continue the efforts every weekend.
