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Kerala: 700 villagers clean River Kuttemperoor, give it a new lease of life in 70 days - India Today

Know how 700 MGNREGA workers gave Kerala's Kuttemperoor river a new lease of life in just 70 days. 

The Kuttemperoor river is a small tributary of the Pamba and Achankovil rivers. For the last decade or so it was nothing more than an almost dead cesspool of pollutants and weeds.
Once this almost 12 km long river was 100 feet wide and between 5 to 12 feet deep. Illegal mining of sand along the river bed, dumping of waste and water weeds had effectively killed off the river by 2005. At its prime it has served as the prime source for irrigation and for all non-drinking water utilities of the villagers in the Budhanoor Gram Panchayat's region in Alappuzha district.

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 700 people in 70 days gave life to the dead river. Kuttemperoor river in Kerala was dead for 10 long years. But not any more. A tributary of Pampa and Achankovil rivers, Kuttemperoor has now had a rebirth, thanks to the efforts of 700 workers for 70 days. Environmentalists have always said that any water body can be given a rebirth despite how severe its pollution problems are, or how near it is to death, and Kuttemperoor will go down in history as an example for this. Labourers cleaning the river Kuttemperoor before it died At one point, Kuttemperoor was Budhanoor’s lifeline. The residents of the village never experienced drinking water crisis, nor did they have a shortage of water for irrigation. In fact, the river was a source for irrigation for about 25,000 acres of paddy fields. Back then, the river was also used by local traders to transport their goods. It also helped control the flood in many places, because when Pamba and Achankovil overflowed...

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