Students planting saplings at the Restored Mariamman Temple check dam in Coimbatore.
| Photo Credit: SPECIAL ARRANGEMENT

Coimbatore City Round Table 31 (CCRT 31) and Coimbatore City Ladies Circle 16 (CCLC 16), in partnership with Siruthuli, a prominent water conservation NGO, organised a sapling planting drive in which 500 saplings were planted by 500 students in 50 seconds around the restored Mariamman Temple check dam in Kovaipudur.

The event supported by Stalwart Group of Companies and VLB College of Arts and Science drew participation from civic leaders, students, and environment champions alike.

The event took place in the presence of R. Vetriselvan, Deputy Mayor, Coimbatore Corporation; Sujani Balu, steering committee member, Siruthuli; Ragulan Shekar, area chairman, Round Table India ; D. Kalaivani, principal, VLB College of Arts and Science; Lakshmiganth Krishnan, chairman, CCRT 31, R.S. Vidhya, chairperson, CCLC 16; D.R. Koushik, area vice-chairman; Mandhagini Thulasi, area vice-chairperson and Vishnu Prabhakaran, National Secretary, Round Table India.

Located between Arivozhi Nagar and Kovaipudur, the 1.5-acre Mariamman Temple check dam has a storage capacity of 6 million litres. The region has been plagued by severe water scarcity, with borewells running dry even at 1,000 feet depth. Due to neglect, the existing check dams had become ineffective, unable to retain water or recharge groundwater.

In October 2024, Siruthuli initiated desilting and rejuvenation of the check dam. Since then, the dam has filled five times, cumulatively storing and recharging an estimated 30 million litres of water into the groundwater table.