Vellore Hill Restoration Project AID Saathi Srinivasan

Site visit Nov 2010 by Neela Yennawar contact email : neelayennawar@gmail.com AID Penn State University

Introduction to Vellore hills

Vellore is a bustling town in the district of Picture 1 - Scenic vellore hills Vellore in Tamil Nadu state. The Vellore city municipal corporation, at 151 sq mi, is the largest in Tamil Nadu, surpassing Chennai city corporation, which is 70 sq mi. It is considered one of the oldest cities in South India and lies on the banks of the Palar river on the site of Vellore Fort. The city lies between Chennai (145 km) and Bangalore (215 km) and the Temple towns of Thiruvannamalai and Tirupati. The city has colleges, ancient temples and one of the best hospitals in India, the Christian Medical College & Hospital. Vellore is a major transit point for travelers, a hub for medical tourism and is emerging as a tourist hot spot. It is a 5-hour trip by train from Bangalore, made interesting with sale of good snacks, fragrant flowers and fresh vegetables. I reached Vellore station around noon on Nov 15th, checked into river view hotel and spent the next two Picture 2 - Srinivasan in partnership with vellore forest committee president days with Srinivasan.

Hiking in Vellore Hills

As Srinivasans and I drove out of vellore, the dusty town was replaced by lush green fields and scenic hills (Picture 1). It was a refreshing change. However there Picture 3 - Cartoon map of Vellore hills was a heavy downpour of rain and the to be reforested visibility reduced. I was not sure if the hike up the hills was even going to be possible with this thick curtain of water. Nevertheless we kept driving and met with overall project coordinator Mohan and one of the vellore forest committee presidents. We set off with umbrellas and raincoats in hand (Picture 2) beginning our tour of the five hills in the focus triangle shown in Picture 3. Luckily the downpour subsided to a light drizzle and hiking amidst all the lush green fields was breathtaking.

Meeting Indian Green ServiceTeams

Picture 4 Indian green service all-men team Picture 5 Indian green service hill restoration all-women team.

In the forest area, enthusiastic Indian Green Service (IGS, the NGO started 8 months ago by Srinivasan) team members (Picture 4,5) walked us through dozens of percolation ponds. The IGS has 46 current employees. They are referred to as volunteers. They wore green forest canopy uniforms, caps and boots. Some of them had rain coats, cell phones (although signal was poor) and whistles for any emergency. Srinivasan has been recruiting Picture 6 - Srinivasan planning the unemployed youngsters, shepherd boys location and design of the percolation and women from nearby villages. He has ponds based on the surrounding grouped the employees into seven landscape teams, each team consisting of 7 people either all ladies or all men. Each team has at least one cell phone and several hand tools for digging. They work from 6:30 AM to 5PM and report to village forest committee presidents regarding the days progress. Two overall team supervisors Mohan and Ramachandran report activities and photographs to Srinivasan via email or phone. Srinivasan supervises location and design of the percolation ponds. He is seen giving instructions to IGS men in Picture 6 regarding digging for new ponds. In the two days that I visited the hills of Vellore, I got to see many percolation ponds similar to the one shown in Pictures 7. Each of these small percolation ponds take anywhere between 1 to 2 days to manually dig. I met with most of the IGS work force and visited one of the nearby villages and met with the families of some of the workers. The enthusiasm for the VHRP project with the villagers seems good.

Picture 7 Team spirit eases digging with hand tools and working in isolated forest areas. Many of the percolation ponds had retained the rain water enabling a slow flow to the ground water table.

Current Status
The status of the project can be summarized as follows Made ~550 percolation ponds will continue digging till Feb 2011 Planted ~7000 palm seeds and preparing ground for tree planting. Other fruit sapling planting to be done by NSS students before next rainy season after June 2011 Srinivasan is monitoring day-to-day activities sometimes remotely as he travels for the zero waste management projects in Bihar, Gujarat, Tripura, Himachal Pradesh and even Rashtrapathi Bhavan Gets daily cell phone reports via team leaders - before and after pictures possible Mohan and Ramachandran, overall supervisors, trained for VHRP and being trained to help with documentation Small private land donated to IGF Srinivasan plans to build a future environment resource center and showcase VHRP model Hindu news paper accolades VHRP project o http://www.hindu.com/2011/01/04/stories/2011010450590300.htm

Table of percolation ponds versus hill range Name of the Hill Range No. of Volu nteer s 7 4 7 7 Duration No. of Ponds

Paliedayanpattai (Ladies Batch) Kalamburan Kottai (Gents Batch) VandiKal (Gents Batch) Palamathi Hill Range -Karunkali Kuppam.Gents Batch Unmarried

1st, June to 8th Dec 1st, June to 8th Dec 20th, Aug to 8th Dec 1st, June to 8th Dec

83 Nos 91 Nos 81 Nos 81 Nos

Karunkali Kuppam (Gents Batch Married)

1st, June to 8th Dec

128 Nos

Karunkali Kuppam (Ladies Batch Married & Unmarried mixed)

24th,Sept to 8thDec

76 Nos

Selamanatham Hill Range

5th , Dec to 8th Dec

15 Nos

Over all Project in charges

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TOTAL

46 2

555 Nos

Table of wells being monitored. Well water increases seen up to ~15 feet Name of the Hill Range Supported by Well Under Monitoring Paliedayanpattai (Ladies Batch) Kalamburan Kottai (Gents Batch) VandiKal (Gents Batch) Vellore Forest Division AID, Austin. (Hill FORT) AID, Buffalo. (Trucking Ending spot) Palamathi Hill Range -Karunkali Kuppam.Gents Batch Unmarried AID, Portland. (Murugan Temple & Site Seeing) -10 wells 25 wells 43 wells

Karunkali Kuppam (Gents Batch Married) Karunkali Kuppam (Ladies Batch Married & Unmarried mixed)

AID, Boston. (Forest Bungalow)

15 wells

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Selamanatham Hill Range

AID, Penn state. (Resource centre & Camping Spot)

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Over all Project in charges

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TOTAL

93 wells

Partnering with vellore forest department, local politian Mr. Ramachandran, farmers and villagers (see Pictures 8) - easier said than done Pictures 8 Clockwise from top left - local farmer talks about well water increase and agrees to monitor against cattle grazing in forest, farmer's well, Vellore forest committee president, in dialogue with politician.

Current problems o Cattle, mainly goats and cows, grazing on fresh shoots forests hesitation in village to give up names of cattle owners

o Logging for firewood shepherds cut branches of trees, angry when caught

o Forest fires set by miscreants in order to get quick growth grass for cattle - After Feb teams guarding against forest fires, logging and grazing

Specific requests from Srinivasan for AID chapters

Used Binoculars Used digital cameras for documentation Used clothes for families Help with publicizing VHRP model with friends and IT sectors so that it can be taken to a national level similar to ZWM Certificate of recognition from AID for conscientious partners including IAS officers, forest officers, village panchayat presidents who support solid and liquid waste management in rural areas - shield and prize Rs 5000 conditions apply -

6 months in project, documentation including amount recovered, collector should send award, Jan 26 and aug 15, dc will give AID award keep india clean award

Conclusion
The VHRP site visit was a heart warming experience. I feel very positive that this has progressed well so far and believe the VHRP model is a success story in the making that AIDers can feel proud about. The goals for the future are realistic. The welcome smiles from children of IGS workers in Picture 9 says it all. Srinivasan is getting attention at the national level with the zero waste management project with it being incorporated in Bihar, Gujarat, Tripura and Himachal Pradesh. The VHRP project will be the next feather in his cap and hopefully will be adopted in various parts of the world.

Picture 9 - Smiles on children's faces in a nearby village as we visit.