The Hindu : Tamil Nadu / Chennai News : Water systems under siege: environmentalists

Online edition of India's National Newspaper
Thursday, Oct 21, 2004

Tamil Nadu

Tamil Nadu - Chennai

Water systems under siege: environmentalists

By Our Special Correspondent

CHENNAI, OCT. 20. The State Government should act to prevent further encroachment of lakes and water systems, participants at an environment meet here today.

The Pallikaranai marsh and the Madhavaram and Manali jheels should be declared protected backwaters and no development activity or dumping should be done there, they added. The Pallikaranai marsh, a fresh water system, was capable of re-charging the water table. But dumping of solid waste by the Chennai Corporation and untreated water by Metrowater had played havoc with the marsh, they added.

The meet, styled as `consultation on the status of the environment in the plains of northern Tamil Nadu in 1995-2004,' was organised by the Tamil Nadu Environment Council.

Participants hailed the steps taken by the Government to construct a percolation pond on 100 acres in the Ambattur Lake and requested the Government to do the same in the Koratur and Chitlapakkam lakes. Also, the irrigation tanks of Kancheepuram and Tiruvallur districts, which form the backbone of agriculture, should be revived. Checkdams should be constructed across rivers, including the Adyar, Kosathalai and Arani. This will improve the water table in the region, they said.

They cautioned the Government against involving multinational corporations in water distribution and said there was no need for World Bank schemes such as the Water Resources Conservation Project. "The age-old `kudimaramathu' is still possible. The people of Nagapattinam district proved it when they cleared weeds in a river without getting anything from the Government or from any agency," the participants noted.

It urged the Government to abandon corporatisation of agriculture in the name of planting alternative crops. Instead, priority should be given to upgrade water sources with people's participation.

The TNEC founder, L. Antonysamy, said this was the last of the nine consultations that the organisation had planned. Two were held for coastal areas, two for hill regions and five for the plains.

He said growing urbanisation in Chennai posed a direct challenge to the water security of the northern districts, adjoining the city, and claimed that that many industries operated their water recycling plants only when officials came for an inspection. The pressing need was to stop more big industrial projects from beginning operations here.

Water sources had to be saved from polluting industries. He said environmentalists who raised objections against projects were being labelled as "anti-development" and "disruptive."

R.K. Sivanappan, water resources consultant, said in the 50s there were 39,000 lakes and tanks in the State. They irrigated about 10 lakh hectares during that time. The number of lakes and tanks had dwindled significantly since then.

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