Techies’ healing touch for Tamil Nadu water bodies

Bengaluru: Elan Kulandaivelu, a 46-year-old IT entrepreneur from city, has been in the forefront in fighting the recent floods in Chennai. He is part of a group comprising techies and ex-servicemen in the city who have been working tirelessly from the day one to rescue flood victims in Chennai.

Now this group is continuing with the rehabilitation work and want to create a team, consisting of environment experts, that will work towards rejuvenation of Tamil Nadu's waterways and water bodies, so that such situations could be averted in future.

Kulandaivelu said, “During our rescue and relief mission we understood that we needed a bigger and a more scientific approach to this issue. There are many sewage channels that enter the sea. Now, during high tide and due to high winds, the sewage water reverses and flows back into the city. Since the sewage backed on to the road, health hazards have increased. We need to see how this sewage water can be treated and reused. Hence, we want to rejuvenate the lakes in Tamil Nadu.”

The techie said the approach will be different in different areas. “For example, in the Chennai Metropolitan we have to see how lake water can be treated. Then in the rural areas we need to look at watershed management. We will get experts to guide us in this. Yes, it is an ambitious project. But we have to go for it now so that the consequences of future disasters could be at least reduced, if not prevented,” he added.

During the rescue mission, Elan and his team managed to get techies from Google and Twitter to engage in the mission with them. For the rejuvenation of water bodies, already 25 people have been given their nod. Elan added, “Currently, we are collating names of people for the project as well as gathering data.”