Nimal Raghavan is a busy man today. He has projects running in Thanjavur and Pudukottai. Along the Thamirabarani, he is managing works in Thoothukudi, Virudhunagar and Tirunelveli. In this part of the state, it is work that’s being directly commissioned by the respective district collectors.
The Indian Army has sought his inputs for a project in Prayagraj; there’s one coming up in Varanasi soon. For when you are in the business of restoring lakes, there’s always another waiting to be brought back to life. In a few days, he’ll be conferred with the Best River Rejuvenator Award at the International River Congress 2021 in Kolkata. Life has come a long way since his trip back home from the world of software engineering was deeply shaken up by the Gaja cyclone and its painful aftermath.
“None of this was something I planned to do or get into. After the Gaja cyclone, there was a need for relief work. That’s what I started with. Even then, I was thinking I’d do this for a while and leave (return to Dubai where he had been working). But seeing the impact from this work was very encouraging. Each day was a lesson — and there the work was always interesting, challenging and it kept me very busy,” he recounts.
Building a name
One of the first works he undertook post-cyclone was finding a solution for the lakhs of uprooted coconut trees and the many coconuts they had left behind. With timely help from a few individuals (particularly music director G V Prakash Kumar), Nimal and the farmers in the Delta region managed to sell the produce at a decent price and put the proceeds towards the recovery journey. It was this work that opened him up to the fact that farmers in these regions were turning away from rice and sugarcane cultivation more and more, primarily because they were heavily water-fed crops and the Cauvery had been too fickle in the years past.
Working with farmers’ associations there, he decided to go the lake restoration way towards water management. “The way it was then, if Tank (eri) A filled up, B, C and D would follow suit and it would reach all the way till Z and then the water would reach the sea. Now, the water that comes from Grand Anicut (Kallanai) is reaching the sea directly because it has no connection to any of our water tanks. We have to send water to the sea but not at this volume. For example, four years ago, we had wasted nearly 200 TMC water to the sea. To put it in perspective, the annual water consumption in cities like Chennai and Bengaluru is 4-7 TMC; imagine the loss. This is what led me to the work of waterbody restoration,” he shares.
Since then, his work has been robust. With timely support from private companies (Milky Mist and Exnora International provided them with an excavator — among other things — that reduced operational costs from Rs 2,000 a day to just Rs 500) and non-governmental organisations (like BiotaSoil Foundation and Kadaimadai Area Integrated Farmers Association), restoration progressed at a brisk pace. Soon enough, having heard of his success stories, people were reaching out to him instead of the other way around. By now, it’s down to a formula.
“Normal lake restoration process requires us to desilt, build boundaries and re-establish the source channel. If there’s seawater intrusion in a lake close to the shore, we need to put in a recharge bit after desiltation. The more water we put down in the ground (with the help of borewells), the more it will repel the sea water. Beyond this, we use native species like vettiver and thetran kottai to aid the effort. The latter is quite rare; of 100 hundred seeds planted, only one might come to life. With this method, we were able to remove salinity in a lake in Tirunelveli by 70 per cent,” he explains.
Scandal and support
Now, 104 projects later, it is still the first undertaking — Peravurani Lake — that has helped him steer his work, stay true to the purpose. “Peravurani got its name after the 564-acre lake. When we started the project, none of us had any experience with lakes. I had only worked on small lakes with others till then. But we decided to work on this and got all the required permits. We were told it would cost Rs 5-10 crores. This was when I had spent all my savings on Gaja relief work and was left with just Rs 20,000. After day one, we had one individual after another volunteer to donate for the cause; it spread like a forest fire. And it was not without controversies — some thought we were getting foreign funding, there was caste politics in it, it was election propaganda and more.
After 70 days of work, the then chief minister Edappadi released water (from Cauvery). On the seventh day or eighth, I get a call from the AE (PWD) that the lake will get water later that day. Seeing that water breakthrough the canal and enter the lake, was a moment of reckoning. Everything we had faced till then — I had left my job for this too — was inconsequential against this,” he narrates.
All this would not have been possible without the local knowledge that was made available to him. “The PWD has a major role in this. But we also consult the beneficiaries in each district and all of them turn out to be legends. Be it people in their 30s, 50s or those well over 70 and 80. How much ever we know about modern technology, each eri has its own behaviour and they would know better than what we can find from months of research and documentation. Like, we would think it’s enough to dig just three feet while desilting but they would know that only when you go for seven, the water won’t break the bund and overflow. Such local knowledge has been vital,” he observes.
These processes have also made him rethink their afforestation efforts. Random drives have invariably ended in the loss of plants, where eight out of ten fail to thrive; they either succumb to cattle or have no one left to maintain them. With the restoration projects, he started placing trees in the middle of the waterbody, with the sand that was dug being put back in to support the saplings. With a steady supply of water for six to eight months, and away from the mouths of hungry animals, these thrived. So far, the saplings planted are at 8.9 lakh; he’s also managed to sow 2.8 lakh palm seeds in the process. “Some trees grow as tall as 15-20 feet in just a year. The trees aid in rainwater harvesting within the lake. Besides, it brings in a number of birds. Enga ooruku flamingo ellam vanthuthu; half the birds that go to Udayamarthandapuram Bird Sanctuary began to stop by (Peravurani, Thanjavur). Bees, butterflies and sparrows too increased,” he points out.
Motives and motivation
It’s with all these success stories that he has managed to take the work to more and more districts. Only when they have seen proof of restoration elsewhere are they willing to risk their loss and try it. Then, no one stops with just one lake in their vicinity, he says. Besides, a bigger motivation for sustained maintenance has been the usual suspect — money. “All the lectures you give or the before-after picture evidence does not matter. Only when you point out that they would have to spend on further restoration if they fail to keep this up, do they buck up and pay heed to what you have to say,” he admits.
The gratitude that comes his way has been overwhelming too. He recalls the gesture from a 75-year-old farmer in Pudukkottai where he and his team brought water to a tank after 50 years of dryness. “When I visited the place after seven months for an ‘after’ picture, a thatha came to me with a manja pai. From inside it, he pulled out a plate and emptied all the wheat from a bag onto it. He told me that he, who hails from a huge agriculture family, had not been able to practice farming for 50 years. Not wanting to lose sight of the work, he had leased out a land 100 km away. He was hoping to return to his village for agriculture before his death. It was made possible by our work. The wheat he gave me would have given as an offering to god,” he recollects.
With just six months of work, they have been able to restore groundwater level from over 500 feet to less than 100, changing the status quo of 40-50 years. What more encouragement do you need, he asks. Perhaps an excavator or two? Have a tank you need restored? Want to aid the effort? You can reach Nimal at +91 99622 00666.
Responsible to the surroundings
Random drives have invariably ended in the loss of plants, where eight of ten fail to thrive; they either succumb to cattle or have no one left to maintain them. With the restoration projects, Nimal started placing trees in the middle of the waterbody, with the sand that was dug being put back in to support the saplings. So far, the saplings planted are at 8.9L; he’s also managed to sow 2.8L palm seeds in the process.