KOZHIKODE: The Bazar Canal that facilitated the freight movement of an era through the town linking the railway station to the seaport is history. “It was gradually being reclaimed for other purposes,” says archives’ expert T.B. Seluraj. The mission of collector U.V. Jose to revive the district's once famous network of canals now gives it fresh hopes. It includes cleansing and beautifying of the Canoly Canal and opening up the waterlogged Kallayi-Canoly-Korapuzha canals linking it with the national waterway.
Map of Canoly Canal
“The Canoly starting from Elathur and going up to Kallai was the best waterway once upon a time,” says Mr Seluraj. Mr Jose said the survey of Canoly Canal land is over and encroachments identified. “The corporation, other local administrative bodies and Compassionate Kozhikode volunteers are on a no stones unturned mission to complete different phases of the project in time,” he told DC. "We need only 14 meters width for the waterway, but as per the sketches, we have up to 16 meters in certain stretches. But it is true there are encroachments to be evicted inhabitants rehabilitated with compassion.”
The draft plan will be ready within few weeks. The irrigation department is reworking its rejuvenation plan for the Kallayi stretch of the canal network which will be finalised soon. As many as 25 acres of encroached land here has been identified. Mr Jose hopes the local administrative bodies with the support of youngsters will protect the rivers, rivulets and canals once the government identified the borders. Once the process is over, the focus would be on cleaning the water.
“There would be strict action against those who dump waste and also against those who discharge wastewater from institutions and firms directly into the waterways,” he said. Beypore legislator V.K.C. Mammad Koya, a former city mayor, said a concerted effort should be there to create awareness among people on the value of streams and the ecosystem around it. “We should act fast as it would be tough to reclaim the waterways once they got irredeemable,” he said.
