A Little Cormorant perches on a fallen branch sticking out of the muddy waters of Pullekonam Chira, commonly known as Haimavathy pond. White-breasted Kingfishers rest on twigs nearby, waiting patiently for the little fish to surface on a hot and sultry day. Apart from occasional bird calls, the water body and the woods around is silent and deserted even at noon.
Thick wild growth surrounds this forgotten life source inside the Kerala University campus at Karyavattom. Located in the middle of an Acacia jungle at the foot of the plateau that houses much of the university, the pond and its surroundings were considered to be haunted for decades. So students and staff rarely venture down the wild path. Eventhough the ghost stories were busted some time ago, the pond remained abandoned until 2011 when a newly formed Campus Development Committee proposed a project to revive natural ponds inside the campus.
On a mission
Although it got delayed due to several reasons, it is back on track. “Haimavathy and Kundettukonam Chira, near Botany department are the ones that are set to be revived. It is being done as one of the first steps to give Karyavattom campus a facelift as well as to reclaim the biodiversity lost to Acacia trees,” says R Dileep, joint registrar of Karyavattom campus, who is coordinating the project.
The campus will also become water-self sufficient by the end of May with the completion of two big wells, being constructed near the ponds.
Kundettukonam Chira
There are four natural ponds inside the 350-acre campus. “There were settlements inside the campus long before the government took over the place and these ponds would probably have been their main water sources for their agricultural purposes and other daily use,” says Achuthsankar S Nair, head of Computational Biology department on Karyavattom campus. Haimavathy pond is the biggest of the four.
It was rumoured that a woman named Haimavathy had drowned in the pond long ago and since then the pond was called Haimavathy.
“I think every big campus with enough wilderness is home to some sort of myths and this is just a part of that,” Achuthsankar adds. But the rumours, Dileep feels, have been fanned to a large extend by anti-social elements who had used the place for illegal activities. The new project aims at bringing the pond and its surroundings out of obscurity. An abandoned hatchery has been renovated and when it starts functioning, the plan is to use the pond as a breeding ground for fishes.
Dileep adds, “We have cleared the fallen trees around the pond and taken out the branches that covered the pond surface as a pre-cursor to the revival. There is much work to be done”.
Kerala Irrigation and Infrastructure Development Corporation(KIIDC) will be carrying out the project as part of their Urban Environmental Improvement Program. They have restored more than 53 ponds within the city corporation limit.
“The trouble with this pond is that no one knows much about it. We have no idea how deep it is and how much mud has accumulated over the years. Most of the ponds we have revived till date nestles in the middle of residential areas. Apart from restoring, we also landscape the banks of the ponds and turn it into a recreational area for the local residents. But the University wants to keep this pond as natural as possible by retaining the wilderness around it. So it will be quite different from our other projects,”says Arun VV, KIIDC project engineer who is in charge. When revived, the ponds will act as a watershed that will help in conserving groundwater, which in turn will help the wells built near them.
According to experts in the Department of Geology, the restored ponds will also help maintain the water level in several small wells around the campus in the long run. Work has already begun with a survey to measure the depth of the pond as well as the amount of mud.
If everything goes well, Arun adds, Haimavathy pond will be resuscitated in four months.
Reclaiming the lost
As part of the biodiversity restoration within the campus, initially Acacia trees on 60 acres of land will be auctioned and cleared to make space for species like mango, jack fruit and coconut
