Mudichur project!

There is this village (panchayat) near tambaram, on padappai route that shud count itself so lucky. Its on the outskirts of the city but still has village looks and feel- yes, so much oxygen, so many trees, so much of culture and tradition alive! For eg. a 150 year banyan tree still is the big meeting point in the centre of the village.

The village panchayat president Damodaran is a very energetic and excellent man, one of those very straight guys who uses all the funds for the right jobs as they are meant. What more, he does lots more. He has revived 3 lakes and was on the job of reviving 3 more on the day of my visit. He pointed to the oldest 'ery' that was done up in to a big lake now and proudly claimed – " every pair of hand of this village has shaped this. Every single indiv had something to do here and Iam proud for that than just the conservation of the lake" how true? Then he took me to his office. Office, did I say? Oh no, one cant believe..that was a beautiful park packed with so many trees and plants, bloomed flowers and tidily maintained. So such people still exist, pl note folks!

As for the project itself, it's a joint work of the panchayat, an NGO called hand in hand, womens self help group and Exnora . remember? I had told u about Indrakumar here and here. He is the techincal consultant for this project. So, no wonder, they are marching with pride as a zero waste community, well almost. They have the house to house collection (by SHG) and the segregation in place and compost yard is set up where they turn the organic waste in to vermi compost. The only area to achieve more expertise is the inorganic handling/recycling and then it shud become a zero waste managed village in toto. That's not far and it shall be a model village for many.

The village itself looks so cool (yes in the peak summer that I went, the compost yard bcos of many vacant sites had nice cool breeze all day) and the oxygen filled lake sides, the temple campus, the big old banyan tree which gave shade a football ground size are all a great attraction for a days picnic.

Note: Those of you interested, send me a personal mail, lets go as a group. We are also looking at a possibility of hooking up a hands on organic farm experience in the near future. Add to this the great many nurseries nearby in the padappai direction, prolly u wud have had a one of its kind get away.