Cognizant and Grundfos announced funding support for the restoration of the Sembakkam Lake in Chennai. The two companies will collaborate with the India chapter of The Nature Conservancy and Chennai-based Care Earth Trust. Cognizant will contribute more than INR 2.7 crores and Grundfos will contribute INR 1.7 crores and up to INR 7.5 lakhs in kind for civil works, wastewater treatment, and landscaping to rejuvenate the 100-acre lake. The project is expected to be completed in 2021 and involves cleaning the inlets and outlets, improving the lake’s connectivity with upstream and downstream water bodies, building an eco-friendly wastewater treatment system, constructing walkways and green buffer zones along the lake.
Poul Due Jensen, Group Executive Vice President, CSO, Grundfos said: “Grundfos pioneers solutions to the world’s water and climate challenges and improves the quality of life for people. We are also committed to the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals #6 (Water and Sanitation) and we have set very ambitious and concrete goals for ourselves. By 2030, Grundfos will save 50 billion cubic metres of freshwater through efficiency and treatment and will have contributed to providing safely managed drinking water to 300 million people in need. Our support towards the restoration of the Sembakkam Lake is aligned to delivering on these objectives. By restoring this lake, we are not only strengthening its ecosystem, but also the connection between people and nature by providing a platform to connect them with the water body and its habitat.”
Muthu Kumaran, Global Head of Delivery for Cognizant Digital Business and the head of Cognizant’s Chennai operations said: “We are pleased to be a part of this much-needed lake rejuvenation project as part of our commitment to a greener, healthier and sustainable environment. The Sembakkam Lake is one of Chennai’s 54 inter-connected lakes of the Pallikaranai watershed basin that are critical to the city’s water security and resilience to floods and droughts. We believe this initiative has the potential to become an inspiring example of how the coming together of various stakeholders for a rejuvenation project of this scale can redefine the future sustainability of urban ecology. We congratulate Care Earth Trust, Indian Institute of Technology Madras, The Nature Conservancy, and all individual as well as corporate contributors to the project for their remarkable work towards restoring this vital lake to its former glory.”
Seema Paul, Managing Director, The Nature Conservancy’s India Program said: “The support of Cognizant and Grundfos is vital to take up the critical eco-restoration work at Sembakkam Lake. We are deploying science-based and nature-led solutions using constructed wetland systems that use minimal energy, require zero chemical additives and are inexpensive for wastewater treatment at the lake. We will continue monitoring the lake even after the completion of the project to ensure sustainable maintenance. Bringing together our learnings from this project, we are developing a best practices guideline to catalyse scale-up of scientific and holistic, wetland restoration across the city.”
