Manikandan

Founder

Founder of Kovai Kulangal Padhukappu Amaippu

Manikandan is the founder of Kovai Kulangal Padhukappu Amaippu [1], an Indian non-profit working on water & sanitation and environment from Coimbatore.

R. Manikandan is an Indian environmental and social activist from Coimbatore, Tamil Nadu, and the founder and coordinator of Kovai Kulangal Padhukappu Amaippu (the Coimbatore Ponds Protection Organisation), which was formed on 5 February 2017 by a group of fourteen citizens during a severe water shortage in the city.

The organisation restores lakes, ponds and channels around Coimbatore through weekly volunteer work, clearing waste and invasive vegetation and reopening water channels.

Early life and education

Manikandan grew up in a poor family in Sundarapuram, Coimbatore. He left school after class eight and worked as an apprentice in a workshop. As a boy he helped older neighbours draft petitions to government departments.

Career

His interest in water conservation began in about 2000, when his family's well dried up. He traced the cause to a cracked and dysfunctional check dam upstream, wrote to the Public Works Department, and the structure was repaired; the well refilled when the monsoon came.

He formed a volunteer group that helped older residents apply for government assistance and housing schemes and took part in relief work after the 2004 tsunami; the Nehru Yuva Kendra recognised it as the most active group in Coimbatore district. He spent about two decades campaigning against the invasive Prosopis juliflora, known locally as seemai karuvelam, which depletes groundwater.

In 2014 he led an effort to reclaim Kurichi Lake from waste and encroachment, and the success of that work led to the formal founding of Kovai Kulangal Padhukappu Amaippu in February 2017. The organisation grew to around a hundred regular active members and has worked on several ponds, lakes and canals in and around the city.

Recognition

Manikandan received the Water Warrior award from the Union Ministry of Jal Shakti in 2022.[2][3][4][5]

Kovai Kulangal Padhukappu Amaippu

Born out of Coimbatore's 2017 water crisis, Kovai Kulangal Padhukappu Amaippu is a volunteer movement founded by Central Water Warrior awardee R. Manikandan that spends every Sunday desilting, cleaning and rejuvenating the city's lakes, ponds, canals and the Noyyal river. Its work has pulled lakes like Vellalore back into the green zone, built rainwater harvesting structures and created a butterfly park with the district administration.

Kovai Kulangal Padhukappu Amaippu reports the following, on its own site:

30,800+ volunteers joined across 310+ volunteer weeks
15+ water bodies rejuvenated with 155,000+ cubic metres of water storage created
150+ tons of plastics removed and 29,400+ saplings planted