Whenever I’m on the Chennai-Bangalore highway I see this river all the way stretching from Ranipet from Vellore. For past ten years, only once I had seen water running in this river, rest of the time it is always dry.
In Tamil Palar means Milk River or Milky River. Pal means Milk. Lar (ar) means river. I kept wondering from where this river is from and why its always dry throughout the year. I had a hunch that this should be from Andhra Pradesh as the Arcot districts share their border with AP, but this river originates in Karnataka.
In Karnataka it travels 90 Kms, in AP 30 Kms and the rest 220 Kms in Tamil Nadu. The entire stretch of 220 Kms is dry!. This documentary “En Peyar Palar” (My Name is Palar) talks about the plight of this river in Tamil Nadu and the reasons for its dryness throughout the year.
Reason- Karnataka & Andhra constructed various small dams and hold the Pallar water.
Once a fertile lands are now turning out to be useless for anything. The documentary interviews farmers, social activists, people affected by pollution caused by the leather industries and sand quarries in the river. So often we do chest thumping of the industries, but seldom they have facilities to prevent environmental disasters. In India about 40% of leather products are manufactured from the Vellore and surrounding areas.
Sand is essential in construction of houses\buildings and there is no alternatives. But the problem is excessive mining and most the sand taken in this river are smuggled into AP and Karnataka. These states does not oblige to water-sharing, but they want sand from Tamil Nadu!
The irony in this Pallar river is in a town called Palur in Kancheepuram district, which got a mineral water plant for IRCTC. The Rail Neer from this plant distributed in Southern trains & stations. I wonder if there is no water in the river from where they will they get the water for the plant ? Are they taking groundwater ? What happens to the waste water, because for every liter of a RO purified water, we get 3-Lit of waste salty water !! This is not covered in the documentary as this plant was commissioned in 2011.
I believe change is inevitable, everything created by the nature has to be destroyed and then it recreates itself. This the law of the nature. But this recycle takes millions of years, but man can do it in the matter of few years. Being a part of this system, all I can do is to sit comfortably in the AC bus and stare at the dry river bed.
Watch the entire documentary in YouTube,
**Pics by The Hindu & rajeshbabu.com
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