Chennai: After several years of neglect, the Retteri and Korattur lakes were given a new lease of life after the water resource department carried out renovation work last year. But the condition of lakes has turned bad once again thanks to lack of maintenance.
Spread over 400 acres of land, part of Retteri lake’s newly-laid walker’s path on its bund has been damaged by miscreants. A granite marble seating along the footpath has also been broken. “With no lights, the entire stretch of walker’s path has become a safe den for drinkers.
One can see empty liquor bottles thrown around all over the place making entire facelift given to the lake into a total waste,” said K. Shanmugha Sundaram, a resident of Lakshmipuram. He noted that some people often enter the site and ride motorcycles over the work area and damage the amenities.
Another resident M. Gangadharan said that entire lake should be fenced and security personnel should be placed to protect the lake and other amenities, renovated spending crores of rupees from miscreants. “The water resources department should also provide a children play area and also install lighting along walkers path with the support of Chennai Corporation.
Unless lights are installed, the walkers path will be used by drinkers in the night time,” he said. Water hyacinths, removed from the lake last year, have reappeared covering large portion of the water body in Korattur. “It is not even a year since the vegetations were removed. Now again water hyacinths have grown occupying most parts of the lake. Periodic maintenance work should be undertaken to keep the lake clean,” said R. Sathish, a resident of Korattur.
A WRD official said works would be undertaken to repair damaged walkers path and granite marble seating. “We are also going to repair parts of bunds damaged in recent rains,” the official said, adding that lighting facility should be provided by the city corporation. As far as water hyacinths growth in Korattur lake, he said that it would be removed very soon.
