Tiruvallur district administration pulled up for the mess.
Madras High Court (Representational Image)
Chennai: The Madras high court has pulled up the Tiruvallur district administration for its mess in maintaining a lake at Tirunindravur. A Division bench comprising Chief Justice Sanjay Kishan Kaul and Justice Pushpa Sathyanarayana disposed of a Public Interest Litigation from T. K. Rajendran of Tirunindravur which sought to restrain authorities from opening the lake’s shutters in the interest of agriculturists The bench said the petition sought to raise the issue of the interest of the agriculturists and residents of Muthamizh Nagar, Periyar Nagar and Swadeshi Nagar at Tirunindravur.who were facing floods. The petitioner alleged that the residents of these three areas had actually encroached on the lake. That was why they found themselves in an unfortunate situation.
The bench said that in the counter affidavit by PWD and district Collector, it was conceded that the land was alienated to Tamil Nadu Slum Clearance Board for constructing dwelling flats and that area was a lake area. Not only that there being further slum creation around that area by unauthorised fresh encroachments, the inhabitants of Swadeshi Nagar fell in this category and would be liable to be evicted summarily. The submission was that unless the water was released, the lake itself would be in danger, apart from the fact that it was difficult to take out the water which must find some path.
“The aforesaid is only one example of how the land use area has been violated and precautions for proper development given a go by.” The Bench said it did not want to step into administrative domain. Suffice to say that agriculturists interest should be safeguarded to ensure that water in the lake was capable of utilisation in future when there may be a paucity of water. But, at the same time, if there was a danger to the lake’s boundaries, necessary precautions had to be taken. “As to how this has to be done, it is the baby of the administration”.
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( Source : deccan chronicle )
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