Civic body, PWD have no action plan for removing encroachments
Adyar river. (Photo: DC)
Chennai: The width of Adyar river has narrowed in several pockets at least by 30 per cent due to encroachments in the last 30 years. But encroachers need not worry. Both Chennai corporation and the public works department (PWD) vested with the powers to curb them have no action plan on clearing them this year prior to the monsoon, which is expected by next month.
The Chennai corporation last week conducted a pre-monsoon arrangement meet in which officials from the PWD, Chennai metro water and the police participated. Though the issue of encroachments was discussed, no detailed action plan was chalked out, a confidential source said.
“It is a fact that the width of Adyar river has narrowed down by more than 30 per cent and a few pockets like Ekattuthangal, Saidapet and Adyar are worse off. The drive by government officials over the past few years had only hit roadblocks due to political interventions,” said former chief engineer of Chennai corporation A. Swaminathan. Chennai has recorded floods once every five years, and only when there is flooding, the encroachments are cleared, not otherwise,” he added.
“According to the second master plan of the Chennai Metropolitan Development Authority (CMDA), several catastrophic floods were recorded in Chennai during 1978, 1985, 2002 and 2005, caused by heavy rain associated with cyclonic activities. Subsequently, many recommendations were made by the CMDA and environmentalists,” said former Chennai mayor M. Subramanian.
Further, he says during the previous DMK regime, encroachments were removed near Ekattuthangal and Saidapet, but at present, there is no such encroachment drive or initiatives to widen the Adyar river.
“The lack of required width to discharge flood waters due to the presence of patta lands within the flood plains of Adyar river has been a problem since the 1980s, particularly the stretch of the river between Nandambakkam and Manapakkam, which has several huge encroachments,” said Mr S. Thirunavukarasu, general secretary Neer Exnora. He added that recommendations like constructions of check dams, arrest of sewer lines and clearing of encroachments, were not done by the authorities for the past several years.
PWD sources confirmed that there were no major anti-encroachment drives planned along city water ways. Chennai corporation has passed the buck to the PWD as the custodian of rivers and their banks.
( Source : dc )
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