Udhayanidhi Stalin inaugurates restored Mambalam temple tank

CHENNAI: Sports minister Udhayanidhi Stalin on Saturday inaugurated the recently restored Kothandaramar Temple tank in West Mambalam area of Chennai.
Addressing reporters, the minister said, "When the chief minister asked me what my day's plan was, I told him I am going to inaugurate the Mambalam tank. He then told me that he had once visited the tank and was part of desilting efforts," said Udhayanidhi.
Udhayanidhi said after former chief minister Kalaignar Karunanidhi won the election in 1996, one of his first initiatives was to restore this tank. “It was done in a year,” he said.
"Kalaignar allotted Rs 24 lakh for it. It was desilted and opened," he said.
He added that his first initiatives after taking over as the party's youth wing secretary was to restore all the waterbodies in Tamil Nadu. "We have restored more than 1,000 waterbodies ,and now we gave life to these neglected tanks and put them to people's use," he said.
Udhayanidhi added that the Mambalam tank was restored at a cost of Rs 1.65 crore and a toilet is built there at a cost of Rs 19 lakh.
“No constituency will be left out, and we have got the pride of being number one state in the country. We have restored this waterbody. It is now the duty of people to protect it," the minister said.
Health minister Ma Subramanian, Chennai mayor R Priya and deputy mayor Mahesh Kumar were present.