The Hindu : Tamil Nadu News : West Tambaram residents want Ranganathapuram lake desilted

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Thursday, Feb 21, 2008
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Tamil Nadu

Tamil Nadu

West Tambaram residents want Ranganathapuram lake desilted

K.Manikandan

The waterbody once measured nearly 100 acres

— Photo: K. Manikandan

CLEANING SOUGHT: A view of the Ranganathapuram Lake in West Tambaram.

TAMBARAM: Residents of West Tambaram want the State Government to clean up the Ranganathapuram Lake that has become a vast reservoir of water contaminated with effluents and sewage.

Also known as Kadaperi Lake and ‘potheri’, but popularly called Ranganathapuram Lake, this waterbody once measured nearly 100 acres, but now has only half of its original expanse.

Residents of Ranganathapuram said the Government classified about 30 acres of unused portion of the lake as ‘natham poramboke’ in 1978 to facilitate housing for the poor.

A considerable portion of the lake was also encroached upon over the past couple of decades, said officials of the Department of Municipal Administration and Water Supply.

Drop in water quality

Residents of eight wards of Tambaram Municipality are concerned at the deteriorating quality of water from their domestic and deep borewells as ground water recharge takes place from the lake. The amount of contamination is so much that a whiff of foul smell passes by when people travel on the lake bunds.

“The lake has not been cleaned in 12 years. Oil from the Tambaram depot of the Metropolitan Transport Corporation, effluents and sewage from market areas of West Tambaram, restaurants and other commercial establishments, apart from several houses are drained into the lake," pointed out M.K.Nagoor Kani, Councillor of Ward No. 7.

Water drawn from surface and borewells in Kasthurbai Nagar, Ranganathapuram, Kadeperi and some areas of Pulikuradu and Kannadapalayam is dark in colour and accompanied by a pungent smell, according to Mr. Kani.

Desilt lake

The water should be drained out, the lake desilted and deepened and contamination by sewage and effluents should be stopped as the waterbody was the source to recharge ground water to several thousand families, he said. The problem of waterbodies getting contaminated by effluent discharge was not restricted to Ranganathapuram.

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