Tiruchy:
Much to the surprise of the officials and public, collector Jayashree Muralidharan donned the role of an unskilled labourer and dug the earth with spade and removed the mud from the Maavadipatti irrigation tank at Ponneripuram, near Ponamalaipatti, on Sunday to encourage and motivate a group of volunteers engaged in desilting the sprawling 143 acre irrigation tank.
A group of NSS students and volunteers have been engaged in desilting the Maavadipatti irrigation tank at Ponneripuram for the past two weeks.
Collector Jayashree Muralidharan rushed there along with a team of officials, comprising DRDA project director Ramasamy, PWD (RC division) executive engineer Bala subramanian and joint director of agriculture Gururaj Singh. Then, she held a spade and started digging the earth and removing the mud.
“She arrived there at 7 am. But, she held the spade soon after arriving there and started working continuously for five hours except for a short break of just 10 minutes to have her breakfast (idlis) which she had brought from home. She left from there at 12.40 pm,” said sources.
On seeing her digging the earth, other officials also got down to work, the sources said.
About 40 acres of the tank have been under encroachment for many years. The encroachers had raised brinjal and banana on it. But, the officials evicted the encroachments and restored the tank in the presence of revenue divisional officer M. Basheer, the sources said.
“The tank will help irrigate 200 acres of lands in the surrounding areas. If all lakes and irrigation tanks are properly maintained, rainwater can be harvested. The groundwater table will increase and there will be no problem of groundwater in the district”, collector said.
source: http://www.deccanchronicle.com / Deccan Chronicle / Home> News> Current Affairs / by DC / July 29th, 2013