THIRUVANANTHAPURAM: Revenue officials, on Tuesday, detected encroachments totalling 1.5 acres on Pipeline Road from Kowdiar to Vellayambalam.

While in some cases constructions have been done right on top of the 33-inch cast iron pipeline ferrying water from Aruvikkara to Vellayambalam, in most others private parties have encroached on the land belonging to the Kerala Water Authority (KWA) on either side of the pipeline.

On Tuesday, survey was completed on a two-km stretch of the three-km road. The survey on the last stretch of the road would be taken up on Wednesday, Thiruvananthapuram tahsildar C.R. Krishnakumar said here.

"We expected to find only 96 cents of encroachment. After the survey is over, notices can be issued to the people concerned. From what we found today, portion of many houses stand on encroached land. So if the Government does decide to go in for an eviction, all these portions will have to be demolished," he said.

Both sides of the road on the Vellayambalam-Devaswom Board junction stretch are heavily populated.

The road needs to be at least 10 m wide in areas where the pipeline is laid at a depth of 6 m, officials of the KWA said. This was to enable access to the line in case of a leak or a burst. "If a line 6 m under the ground bursts, we cannot dig down straight to access it. We have to excavate a wide area on either side of the line. In the process, we may have to tear down a compound wall or knock down part of a house. In areas where the line is near the surface, the road can be narrower," a KWA engineer associated with Tuesday's survey said.

The survey was done on the basis of documents provided by the KWA and those in possession of Revenue officials. The 10-member team of Revenue officials was assisted by the special squad set up by the KWA to detect illegal water connections and trace encroachments on KWA land.

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