Nellore: Officials of the Nellore Municipal Corporation are in a fix over carrying out the drive to demolish houses and commercial structures constructed on 14 odd irrigation canals passing through Nellore to protect the town from submerging as it did during heavy rains in November last year. Their many worry is that they may be held legally responsible for the drive since most of the occupants possess either patta from revenue wing or No Objection Certificate from the Irrigation department.
Moreover the civic body has been collecting house tax for the illegal structures since decades. The drive commenced on Saturday was suspended on Sunday when YSR Congress legislator Dr P. Anilkumar Yadav joined the people living in the canal banks to protest against the drive. In fact the field level officials as well as the members of the civic body have opposed the plan at this point of time in view of Dasara festival in progress besides ensuing Rottela Panduga.
However, higher officials ignored their pleas under the pretext that the Urban Development Minister P. Narayana and the Chief Minister instructed them to start the work on a war footing in view of cyclone threat to Nellore district between October and December almost every year. Meanwhile, Dr Anilkumar Yadav has rebuked the Corporation for commencing the encroachment removal operation where the width of canal is 30 feet instead of starting from the fag end of the canals where the width narrowed down to 5 to 10 feet.
He expressed surprise over embarking on the operation even after promising to launch the drive only after making alternate arrangements for the displaced. “Eighty percent of the houses on the canal banks were constructed by poor with their hard earned money only after officials gave their nod nearly two decades back. Officials should fix the canal width necessary after assessing the rainfall and flood data of previous years and remove only the houses that are blocking the flow instead of displacing 600 families overnight,” Dr Yadav maintained.
He felt that de-silting the canals to the extent of eight feet and widening them at the tail end is enough to drain the floodwater. Pointing to the need to trace some of the canals, which disappeared because of encroachments, he said that best alternative to avoid making thousands of people homeless is to build a direct channel from Nellore tank to Pennar river to protect the city from flood hazard. He reminded that all the low lying areas were flooded only because heavy outflow from Nellore tank in November last year.
