Deccan Chronicle 07.11.2009

State gobbles up water bodies

Chennai, Nov. 6: Eviction of water body encroachments is a common sight. But the unseen truth is that the state government, like land mafia and a few slum-dwellers, is equally responsible for water bodies’ destruction.

According to senior PWD sources, six major lakes in and around Chennai have been converted into TN Housing Board and Slum Clearance Board layouts in the last decade.

Lakes in Avadi, Ambattur, Velachery, Mogappair and Kakalur in Tiruvallur district are a few examples of this, PWD sources, preferring anonymity, revealed. Lakes in Tambaram, Pallikaranai, Medavakkam and even the Chembarambakkam reservoir that supplies water to the city are being encroached currently. A sizeable portion of Kadapperi export processing zone turned SEZ (special economic zone), near Tambaram, lies within a water body, sources pointed out, accusing a leading private hospital of encroaching the Porur tank.

A study has revealed that about 45.55 per cent of Pallikaranai marshland had been encroached for other use between 1991-2001. While commercial establishments like IT and ITeS companies and residential complexes have taken around 83 per cent - that runs up to 807 hectares - roads and garbage yards account for the remaining 17 per cent. In fact, the size of the garbage-dumping yard there had increased from 119.76 acres in 2001 to over 300 hectares now. The bypass road that cuts Pallikaranai wetland into two accounts for 47 hectares marshland. City-based environmental activist Nityanand Jayaraman told this paper that Chennai corporation and CMDA were non-existent agencies promoting real estate. Even the new road projects are designed to run through Cooum, Buckingham canal, Adyar and Mambalam canal, he pointed out.

Testimony to official neglect is that slum clearance board officials have issued patta to about 300 families residing in Tiruvallur lake. PWD officials complained that the revenue department had issued pattas without consulting them. “We have powers to only maintain water bodies that fall within revenue purview,” sources observed, advising revenue officials to scrutinise records, particularly maximum flood level of a lake for at least the last 100 years, before denotifying them and issuing patta. When asked, PWD chief engineer Anbazhagan said the encroachments were stopped long back and the government was keen on protecting water bodies statewide.