The Hindu : Tamil Nadu News : Slowly flows sewage from apartment complexes

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Tuesday, Apr 15, 2008
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Tamil Nadu

Tamil Nadu

Slowly flows sewage from apartment complexes

K. Manikandan

Friction among local bodies, flat owners, residents nearby

— Photo: A. Muralitharan

Contamination: The Vengaivaasal lake into which, residents complain, sewage from an apartment complex is discharged.

TAMBARAM: Problems relating to discharge of sewage by big apartment complexes in the southern suburbs of Chennai are on the rise over the past few months, resulting in friction among local bodies, owners of complexes, and residents in the neighbourhood.

Apartment complexes, some of which have a few hundred dwelling units, have come up in many locations in the suburbs. With no proper sewage disposal mechanism in place, those residing near such complexes are at the receiving end, residents complained.

A few days ago, nearly 100 residents of Medavakkam gathered on the Velachery Main Road and successfully thwarted an attempt to dig channels across the main road in order to drain sewage into a waterbody. They were against an apartment complex, with over 300 flats, trying to dig channels across, with the alleged support of some elected representatives and functionaries of a political party, to drain the sewage.

In Madambakkam, residents of four localities have been putting up with the discharge of sewage that has been draining past their houses for about four months now.

Sewage from an apartment complex finds its way into the Vengaivaasal Lake after passing through stormwater drains of Sridevi and Karumari Amman Nagars and Gayathri and Malladi Gardens.

Office-bearers of the newly formed SKGM Residents’ Welfare Association said that while they lived in the Madambakkam town panchayat limits, the problems originated from the jurisdiction of Sembakkam town panchayat. Water samples collected from their localities and tested at King Institute, Guindy, revealed that they were unfit for human consumption owing to contamination of ground water.

However, Sembakkam town panchayat authorities said sewage of the apartment complex was completely treated and used for gardening. The surplus treated water was only let outside and there was no cause for alarm, they added.

In East Tambaram, residents and elected representatives have been protesting the letting out of sewage from two newly constructed apartment complexes located side by side on the Velachery Main Road.

In Madipakkam too, sewage from a few complexes finds its way directly into the Ullagaram ‘chitheri.’ Members of civic groups in the southern suburbs said it was common practice for sewage to be let out between midnight and dawn so that none would notice. Builders, small or big, completed projects without ensuring proper treatment and disposal of sewage, and it was the flat owners who received the flak when problems surfaced, they said.

Apart from affecting ground and sub-surface water, letting out sewage in the open also posed health hazards, they said, appealing to the State government to give as much importance to proper treatment and disposal of sewage in the suburbs as solid waste management.

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