Mann Ki Baat: PM Modi praises efforts of UP engineer who quit his job to revive ponds

Prime Minister Narendra Modi, while addressing the nation on Sunday, praised the efforts of Ramveer Tanwar, who left a multi-national company in order to revive the ponds of his area. The Indian Prime Minister, during his 'Mann Ki Baat' radio address, praised Uttar Pradesh’s Greater Noida-based 28-year-old mechanical engineer, Ramveer Tanwar, for his immense contribution in the field of reviving the almost "dead ponds".

Notably, the man is known as 'Pond Man' by people in UP's Ghaziabad. He left the job around five years ago and started the noble work from his hometown. 

"Ramveer was doing a job after completing mechanical engineering. However, such a sense of devotion for cleanliness ignited in his mind that he left his job and started cleaning ponds," PM Modi said during the radio program. 

Have a look at the tweet of Prasar Bharti:

Cost of water in big towns motivated Tanwar to spread awareness among villagers 

Meanwhile, Tanwar who spoke to news agency ANI around two years ago, said that he has seen water mistreatment since childhood and started creating awareness ever since.

According to him, he had saved ten ponds until April 2019 and the count is still on. "I completed my B. Tech in 2014 and did my M.Tech in 2016. During my student days, I started creating awareness regarding the sustainable use of water. In big cities, people have to pay about Rs 20 for a litre of drinking water but in the village, people were wasting hundreds of litres of water just because they were getting it for free. I was shocked to calculate the cost of water being wasted so I started sanitising villages by making door to door campaign," said Tanwar.

UP engineer also started working on water conservation

Comprehending a good response from his village, he started organising Jal-Chaupals to create water awareness among the villagers. He said that the noble initiative soon reached other villages, prompting the local administration to assist the mechanical engineer to encourage other people of his nearby village.

Expressing his pleasure, Tanwar also praised the administration for taking the initiative on a larger scale. According to Tanwar, his main focus while cleaning the ponds is to ensure natural and cost-effective methods in order to make the process simpler and sustainable. 

"I had read a book by Anupam Mishra in which he wrote extensively on artificial ponds, I was inspired by it. After reading the book I realised the greater purpose of these ponds and why our elders constructed it. This is a heritage which needs to be respected instead of making it a dumping ground,” he said.

Apart from reviving the "dead ponds", the 28-year-old mechanical engineer has also started working on water conservation at the panchayat level. "After we started reviving ponds, we started involving local villagers in it so that they get emotionally connected with it. Hence they also take care of it and fight pollution," he added.

With inputs from ANI

Image: ANI