Reviving a tank, reclaiming a land, surviving a flood
Over the past week, heavy showers inundated most parts of southern Tamil Nadu, but there was a small region in Virudhunagar, around 110 panchayats or so, that was shielded to a large extent from the floods.
It was because, for the past year, the people of these villages had managed to restore tanks and bunds in the area. “The farmers here worked together to revive the tanks primarily for agriculture.
But tanks also serve as flood mitigators, which is what saved these villages. Each village’s catchment area stores water used to irrigate about 4,000 hectares,” says R Seenivasan, team leader of Pradan, a non-profit that works toward rural development. Pradan worked with the villages to restore the water bodies.