The Hindu : Tamil Nadu News : White Paper sought on waterbodies

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Wednesday, Jul 04, 2007
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Tamil Nadu

Tamil Nadu

White Paper sought on waterbodies

K. Manikandan

Civic groups seek formation of Lake Protection Authority

— Photo: A. Muralitharan

ACTION NEEDED: Civic and environmental groups want better maintenance of waterbodies.

TAMBARAM: Civic groups and environmentalists in the southern suburbs of Chennai want the State Government to accord priority to protection and improvement of waterbodies, so that their water retention capacity could be increased before the onset of monsoon.

Their appeal comes in the backdrop of the increasing instances of dumping of garbage, discharge of sewage and shrinking of lakes and tanks due to encroachments in the suburbs.

As per records available with the Kancheepuram district administration, there are 49 major lakes and tanks in Tambaram taluk that covers the southern suburbs of Chennai. The expanse of these lakes varies from a few acres to several hectares. Once the source of water for farm lands, they have now become the crucial source of ground water recharge to residents living near these water bodies.

According to the activists, most of these waterbodies had fallen a prey to unplanned development, official apathy and rampant encroachments in the past couple of decades besides getting contaminated.

The lakes are under the care and maintenance of different government establishments and the civic groups want the State Government to set up a centralised authority to monitor waterbodies in Chennai Metropolitan Area (CMA).

Civic groups like residents welfare associations in Adambakkam, Chitlapakkam, Pallavaram, Keelkattalai among other places and organisations such as Exnora Innovators Club have written to the State Government listing a series of measures that could be initiated to protect waterbodies.

They suggested that the State Government come out with a White Paper on the number of waterbodies in CMA, their original expanse, their present condition and the problems relating to contamination and encroachments.

In their several petitions to the Government, they sought formation of Lake Protection Authority with adequate powers to pull up offenders who damaged the fragile eco-system in the lakes and also to monitor development activity around water bodies. Until the time such an authority was constituted, revenue authorities of the district administration, the Public Works Department and urban and rural local bodies could devise a plan on strengthening lake bunds, deepen and desilt the water bodies and so that storage capacity could be increased. Inlet channels draining rain water into the water bodies also had to be improved, they said.

The works had to be executed before the monsoon, the activists have appealed. More importantly, State Government agencies such as the Department of Municipal Administration and Water Supply, the Directorate of Town Panchayats and Department of Rural Development should give specific instructions to the urban and rural local bodies not to dump garbage in waterbodies.

Further, in coordination with the Public Works and Revenue Departments, the agencies should take a serious view of complaints about contamination of waterbodies and act accordingly, the activists urged.

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