Tamil Nadu - Chennai   

Submission on Red Hills area

CHENNAI: The Red Hills catchment area has been specifically delineated for restriction of development with a view to maintaining it free from possible contamination and to realise the full benefit of surface run-off, the Chennai Metropolitan Development Authority (CMDA) has said.

The present decision to reclassify the lands in the Red Hills area was to protect the waterbody. Considering the importance of preventing pollution of the lake, the main source of drinking water to the city, the need to regulate developments in the catchment area was reviewed in the early 1990s.

It was then decided to retain the lands already classified as primary residential and mixed residential in the Master Plan and to continue to allow developments therein and that no reclassification should be allowed in other areas to permit urban development.

When the Second Master Plan was prepared, recognising the need to protect the catchment area from pollution and also to allow run-off to the lake and to other series of waterbodies connected to the lake, the catchment area delineation made in 1990s was continued and it was zoned as Red Hills catchment area. The principle adopted was to recognise the existing settlement and residential area and zone them as primary residential and mixed residential, recognise industries authorised by the CMDA and zone them as institutional area. All other areas which were under agriculture/vacant or unauthorised urban use were restricted for development.

The CMDA has said this in its counter-affidavit, filed before the Madras High Court to a petition seeking issue of a writ directing the authorities, including the CMDA, to retain the classification of the approved plot bearing two numbers in the AUETAA Morai Industrial Estate at Morai village in Chengalpattu district as “general industrial use zone” in the proposed Second Master Plan for Chennai Metropolitan Area. The CMDA submitted that the entire Morai village fell within the catchment area. The petitioner had laid the layout unauthorisedly and constructed a few buildings unauthorisedly. This was not a justification for classifying the land for industrial use in the Second Master Plan.

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