HAL finishes Rs.4.77 cr Kumudvathi rejuvenation project

The Dollar Business Bureau

Hindustan Aeronautics Limited (HAL), the state-run aerospace and defence company, said today that it has completed the Rs.4.77 crore river rejuvenation project of Kumudvathi River - near Nelamangala taluk in Bengaluru Rural district of Karnataka.

According to a company release, T Suvarna Raju, Chairman and Managing Director (CMD), HAL has given possession of the project to the panchayats of the beneficiary villages of Nelamangala.

“We are really happy for contributing to such a noble cause of rejuvenating dried natural resources of water at this crucial moment, when water has become a valuable commodity everywhere,” Suvarna Raju said.

“We hope that our efforts will provide a new lease of life to the region’s natural habitat and we will carry on our support to such projects”, he added. 

The beneficiary villages are Budihal, Doddabele, Hasurahalli, Kalalghatta, Kodigehalli, Kuluvanahalli, Shivgange and Thyamagondlu.

In the last two years, HAL spent Rs.4.77 crore on the project, under its CSR (Corporate Social Responsibility) initiative. For the project, HAL has partnered with International Association for Human Values (IAHV), a sister concern of the Art of Living to revive Kumudvathi river, an offshoot of Arkavathi River. The river was once the source of 30 percent water needs of Bengaluru.

The state-run company said that it has sponsored the work for Tavarekere in 2014-15, and mini watersheds of Thymagondlu and Mondigere in 2015-16 that involved re-charging of 202 wells, 202 boulder checks, 27 injection bore wells, 35 water-pools and planting of 15000 saplings.

The expected results from the project after the three rain-cycles include the safeguarding of drinking water sources, revival of irrigation tanks and non-operational bore wells and open wells, which will lead to agricultural and horticulture development, growth in natural vegetation and ecological restoration in the region, it added.