Avalurpet is a village in Villupuram district of Tamil Nadu with nearly 10,000 population. It has a hill temple of Lord Muruga. Every year, a 13-day long festival, known as Panguni Utthiram, is celebrated during the month of Panguni (March-April). Nearly 50,000 people gather from nearby villages to worship Lord Muruga. On that day, all the people bath in the holy temple pond. Rest of the days, the pond is used for regular washing and bathing by local people. By means of these activities, the pond got highly polluted. In this situation, the RSS swayamsevaks decided to clean the pond through shramdan. Saturday was fixed for the shramdan because it is the weekly holiday for all shopkeepers in the village.
Prior to starting the drive, the pond was dried up by motor pump for three days. On that particular Saturday, nearly 400 to 500 people participated in the karseva at 9.30 am. The work continued till 5 pm. The swayamsevaks also arranged lunch for the karsevaks. After end of one day work, the pond was not cleaned up completely. So all of them decided to work on another Saturday too.
Accordingly, next Saturday, nearly 350 people gathered for the work. But again it was not completed. That day some local Muslims also performed the karseva. Here after the cleanup work was very difficult manually, because 20 feet deep mud was present in middle of the pond. So all of them decided to take the help of machines and labourers. For that Rs 1,400 per day were required. The swayamsevaks with the help of local MLA G Panchatsaram of DMK started collecting sponsors for the work. Nearby 15 businessmen sponsored and with the help of that amount the work was finished in 14 days. All the villagers felt happy and satisfied. This was a guiding experience for renovation of another pond at Thiruvannamalai.
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