As part of restoring the beauty of heritage sites and cleaning up water bodies to ensure better percolation, the Nandyal chapter of Indian National Trust for Art and Cultural Heritage (INTACH) volunteered to clean up the Prahlada Varada stepwell at Ahobilam on Sunday.
Titled ‘Jala Mandir Seva’, the idea is to clean up temples as well as water bodies around villages. Under the initiative, launched with the support of Sri Lakshmi Narasimha Swamy Devasthanam of Ahobilam, around 100 volunteers, including students, on the banner of National Service Scheme (NSS) from local colleges, joined hands to desilt and clean up the stepwell.
“INTACH has already launched ‘Mana Ooru Mana Gudi Mana Badhyatha’ to let local residents shoulder the responsibility of cleaning up the surroundings of a town or village and this is a logical extension to clean up water bodies,” say INTACH Nandyal chapter convener M.V. Sivakumar Reddy and additional convener K.B. Sethuraman.
The temple authorities organised ‘bhajan’ and ‘sankeertans’ throughout the programme to keep the volunteers briskly engaged in the programme.