TIRUNELVELI: District Collector KP Karthikeyan inaugurated the digging of 194 ponds, under the Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Scheme, in 125 village panchayats, in Puliyampatti panchayat of Manur block on Friday.
In a statement, Karthikeyan said that his administration was taking various steps, including desilting of waterbodies, to ensure that the residents have access to uninterrupted drinking water and farmers get water for irrigation.
"Apart from this, the district administration is restoring various waterbodies, removing encroachments on them, and planting trees on the banks of waterbodies through the officials of respective departments. To improve the water storage capacity in the district, the district administration has started digging 194 new ponds across 125 village panchayats by utilising 8,19,108 man-days of the MGNREGA in the first phase. Our target is to create 300 new ponds across the district. Officials have been instructed to bring these new ponds to life soon," the collector said.
Block development officers of Manur, Uma and Srikanth, Assistant Engineer Suganthi and Puliyampatti Panchayat president Krishnan were present.