Members of the Palar Protection and Awareness Movement (PPAM) are organising a 28-km walkathon from Shanthaimedu in Ranipet up to the Vellore Collectorate on November 26, to create awareness among the villagers living along River Palar to protect it from pollution and sand mining.
Over 5,000 people from different walks of life are expected to take part in the walkathon. “We have invited women self-help groups, college students, company workers, farmers associations, merchants associations and villagers living along the Palar River bed to take part in the walkathon,” A M Udhayasankar, PPAM member and organiser of the programme, said.
The main objective of the programme is to educate the villagers about the importance of protecting the river bed from pollution. “We will distribute pamphlets demanding tanneries and chemical companies in the district to install Zero Liquid Discharge system to stop polluting the river,” he said.
The volunteers will also urge the local bodies to adopt solid waste management to avoid dumping of garbage and demand the district administration to regulate sand mining in Palar.
A copy of the resolutions adopted by organisation will be submitted to the Collector at the end of the walkathon, he added.
673 farm ponds created in Vellore
As many as 1,482 farm ponds are to be built for the year 2013-2014, of which 673 have already been completed in the district.
Project Director of District Rural Development Agency N Srinivasan said that the work was launched on the orders of the Chief Minister, last summer, in delta districts. Other districts have slowly adopted it and Vellore district has been creating farm ponds for the past three months. The farm ponds have been estimated to cost Rs 51,000 each. They will be created on private, small, marginal and Adi Dravidar farmers’ lands for recharge of groundwater in residential areas, and also on government poromboke lands.