Join the Tharavai Restoration Campaign • Preserving Heritage Landscapes & Biodiversity • Community Action & Ecological Revival
The Tharavai Rehabilitation Committee (TRC)
The TRC brings together traditional leaders and elected representatives from the 12 Panchayats. Since 2002, it has successfully pressed for estuarine check dams and percolation ponds. The TRC will lead the restoration and look after the Tharavai in the long term.
Registered as Tharuvai Regeneration & Upliftment of Vulnerable Peoples Welfare Association, Vembar, under the Tamil Nadu Societies Registration Act, 1975 (Reg. No. 61/2017, 21 June 2017). Registered office: 2/150-4, Valasamuthirapuram, Vembar, Vilathikulam Taluk, Thoothukudi District 628 906.
Governing Board (Executive Committee): V.P. Sundara Ganapathi, President; P.S. Dhanasekaran, Vice President; C. Rajapandi, Secretary; T. Narayanan, Joint Secretary; S. Antony Rathimalar, Treasurer; Members: T. Avila Theresh, J. Anjala, S. Thangasamy, S.P. Ramanathan, and L. Aswalt Ezhilan.
Promoted and supported by People's Action for Development (PAD), Vembar.
Latest (October 2026)
The TRC petitioned the District Collector of Ramanathapuram to remove encroachments blocking the Tharavai's inflow channels. With no budget available at block level to clear them all, the administration cleared one important encroachment by salt pan operators, at an estimated cost of Rs 3.5 lakh. The TRC is pressing for the remaining channels to be cleared.
Our supporting partner
People's Action for Development (PAD)
PAD has worked with coastal communities of the Gulf of Mannar since 1985, from its base in Vembar, Thoothukudi District. Today it works across 230 villages in Thoothukudi and Ramanathapuram districts.
More than 30 non-system tanks rehabilitated (desilting, bund strengthening, recharge).
Mangrove restoration at Punnakayal (2012-2015), now spreading on its own, and at Vaippar (2024 onwards).
GPS and GIS mapping
GPS and GIS mapping that records communities' knowledge of the Tharavai.
