The name Muthalakkulam roughly refers to a pond with crocodiles in it. However the Muthalakkulam , a well-known landmark in Kozhikode city, is neither a pond nor it houses any crocodile now. It is just a name and the pond has long disappeared even from public memory.
This is no fate confined to Muthalakkulam alone. There are a number of such places in and around the city. Kandamkulam , Anakkulam and Bilathikulam , to name a few, were all literal ponds once. They don’t exist any more, but their names do, as sort of abstract memorials to the long disappeared water-bodies.
Certain wards in the city were said to have more 100 private and public ponds ones. Even till 20 years ago, there were more than 60 ponds in the Thiruvannur ward under the corporation and it was recorded in a land survey, says T. Sasidharan, a political worker from Thiruvannur. “However their number has reduced to less than 30 in a recent review,” he says.
Most of the ponds including big and small, private and public, were land-filled for construction activities. The Muthalakkulam is ironically known as MuthalakkulamGrounds now. Kandamkulam has a huge community hall erected at the place where the big pond existed once. Anakkulam is known for a cultural complex the corporation has built at the land filling the pond. Bilathikulam is a housing colony now, known in the name of the erstwhile pond!
Not only private parties, but even local bodies don’t care much about the environmental or ecological implications of killing the precious water-bodies, says E. Abdul Hameed, a people’s science movement worker.
“Filling them with garbage and rendering them useless is the first phase of destroying them in most cases,” says Mr. Hameed, who is also one of the co-authors of Uyirneeru , a comprehensive book on water, brought out by the Kerala Sasthra Sahithya Parishad recently.
Large-scale destruction of water-bodies including ponds and freshwater tanks has serious ecological consequences besides its implications for the declining ground-water levels, says Mr. Hameed. Besides reducing the temperature of the area where they exist, the ponds also help maintain the groundwater levels..
This according to him is besides their crucial role as an ecosystem by themselves attracting birds and hydrating plants and trees around them.
“But who cares when development only means construction,” he asks.
