The State government’s ongoing Varattar rejuvenation programme, with active popular participation, is a model project that could lead to similar river rejuvenation programmes in various parts of the State, Water Resources Minister Mathew T. Thomas has said.
The Minister was reviewing the progress of the ongoing de-weeding work in the Aadi-Pampa, a branch of the Pampa into which the Varattar river mouth opens, at Puthukkulangara on Monday.
According to him, many water sources have been polluted owing to man’s ignorance about the growing need for water conservation and various other reasons. Kerala, the green State which was deemed as the land of rivers, had witnessed the ill effects of water source degradation this year. It was high time the government and the people moved hand in hand to regain the lost glory of precious water sources that were polluted or degraded.
Handing over his contribution of ₹16,000 for the de-weeding work in the Aadi-Pampa, Mr. Thomas said the resource mobilisation by the people for such an environmental cause was a model to the rest of the State.
District panchayat vice president George Mammen Kondoor visited the site later. The Minister requested Mr. Kondoor to contribute to the popular project.
The clearing of mud banks on the Varattar mouth would be carried out to facilitate free flow of water into it from the Aadi-Pampa, once the ongoing de-weeding and block-clearing works were completed, said N. Rajeev, Eraviperoor grama panchayat vice president, who is the general convener of the project.
