Reportedly tamilnadu was glued to the television this diwali, watching the rescue of two year old Sujith Wilson, who had fallen into an abandoned bore well near his house in Tiruchirapalli district and he could not be saved, despite 82 hours of rescue efforts. Meanwhile the toddler’s death was a wakeup call on the need to regulate abandoned bore wells in Tamilnadu. In the past 15 years, at least 10 children have lost their lives in the southern state after getting trapped in unused bore wells.
Furthermore to avoid such incidents in future, tamilnadu Water Supply and Drainage Board (TWAD) passed orders to convert abandoned dry open wells and bore wells into rainwater harvesting structures across the state immediately and perhaps the state’s IT department proposed a hackathon to find a working model to rescue children stuck in bore wells or tunnels. Presently chennai based rainwater harvesting expert sekhar Raghavan is happy to see that the common man has finally realized the need to invest in rainwater.
sekhar Raghavan told “Water from rooftops are fairly clean to use, paved area (like courtyard) runoffs can also be used; as for unpaved area (like lawns) runoff, it would be better to build ponds around the bore well to collect and let the water percolate slowly”. Moreover the TWAD has stated that the public or any NGO can seek their help to close or repurpose abandoned bore wells through their website or @twadboard, their twitter handle. One can also visit TWAD board’s regional offices in person for guidance.
