WaterFest’26 – Inaugural Program

The Waterfest26 was inaugurated at the Pondy Yatch Club on 2nd February. The day’s program included a kayaking session to clean the plastic waste ridden mangroves at the Thengaithittu estuary where within a period of just one hour, about 250kg of waste were removed by volunteers. This was followed by a citizens science session using the iNaturalist app attended by about 30 children and the session was handled by Kavita Dutta of Sri Aurobindo Society. Later a session on the importance of water quality monitoring was taken by Sanjivi of Svarnim Puducherry where children did hands on training on water quality monitoring. There was also an exhibition on wetlands’ biodiversity, of handcrafted water hyacinth products, a motor boat ride through the mangroves etc. Ms.Sankaradevi an expert on mangroves explained the ecology of the mangroves to the participants and she also did an awareness session with the children. The inaugural session was attended and felicitated by Mr Joseph Victor Raj of HOPE, Mr D Balasubramaniam of Pondicherry Science Forum, Mr Munisamy of the Confderation of Govt Employees Association and Mr Arul of TADCEM Foundation, Cuddalore. An overview of the Waterfest26 was given by Mr Raghunath of Sri Aurobindo Society and the Inaugural address was given by Er K. Kalamegam of DSTE who spoke on the need for all stakeholders to come together for the common water-secure future of the region. Later a vote of thanks was proposed by Ms. Anjali, the co-founder of Pondy Yatch Club who hosted the programme. Auro Filio from PondyCAN and other volunteers from Udhavikarangal, Deepsthal School and Inspa Robotics extended the support. The Waterfest26 is being organised every year by the collective Alliance for Good Governance comprising of Pondicherry Science Forum, PondyCAN, Sri Aurobindo Society, Hope and the CGEA taking the lead roles and will have several bio-regional events being planned till 22nd March 2026 which is the World Wetlands Day.