The Times of India 02.09.2010
Despite HC stay, work on pumping station at a park in West Tambaram continues
CHENNAI: While Chennai Corporation is opening parks by the dozen in the city, residents of Amal Nagar in West Tambaram are being robbed of their only park-cum-playground by the municipality which is constructing a sewage pumping station there.
This, in spite of the Madras High Court giving an interim injunction on August 20 against the setting up of the pumping station on the park. Residents too met officials of the Tambaram municipality last week requesting them to stop the work as they had got a stay order from the high court. But on Monday, engineers and officials of the municipality turned up with a large number of police personnel and started the work. "We showed them a copy of the high court order but they neither paid any heed to us nor to the order. They are going ahead with the work very fast due to our objections," said 70-year-old S Rajan, a resident.
As the 9,600-sq ft park remained neglected by the municipality, 63 families in the neighbourhood chipped in to renovate it 20 years ago. They have been maintaining the park ever since. Over the years, they have spent more than Rs 5 lakh in converting the open space reservation land into a park-cum-playground. "Everyone contributed for the renovation. We also installed children's play equipment and set up separate courts for badminton, basketball and volleyball. We also erected a compound wall with three-feet high grills. But now the municipality has demolished everything," said Anandraj, another resident.
On August 6, municipal officials brought down the compound wall and dug a 30-feet wide and 12-feet deep pit to build the pumping station, which is part of the Rs 107cr common underground drainage system. Subsequently, residents met officials of Tambaram municipality and also Kancheepuram collector Santosh K Misra on Friday to petition against the conversion of playground into a pumping station. As a last resort, they approached the high court.
Municipality officials told TOI that the park, located on a low stream area, was the ideal place to have a pumping station because water flow would be smooth. The project, commissioned under the Jawaharlal Nehru National Urban Renewal Mission ( JNNURM), is expected to be completed by October 2011.
