The Hindu : Tamil Nadu / Chennai News : “No funds constraint in reclaiming waterbodies”

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Wednesday, Mar 25, 2009
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Tamil Nadu - Chennai

“No funds constraint in reclaiming waterbodies”

Staff Reporter

Thiruvallur Collector gives assurance to petitioners

CHENNAI: Thiruvallur Collector G. Sundaramoorthy said that adequate funds were available for undertaking various development works in lakes and water bodies in the district and urged local panchayat leaders to make use of them to benefit the farming community.

Speaking at the World Water Day celebration organised by Neer Exnora near Ponneri on Sunday, Mr. Sundaramoorthy, who was flooded with petitions against encroachment on waterbodies, assured the participants that necessary administrative support would be provided to the Public Works Department (PWD) to reclaim several waterbodies, which have been lost due to encroachments.

He said that with several lakes and waterbodies belonging to the PWD, only the PWD should initiate the steps for removing encroachments and should not deflect the issue to the district administration. “Despite pressure not to remove encroachments, the district administration has removed encroachments from several waterbodies including Thangal lake, Ayanambakkam lake and Korattur lake,” he said.

Mr. Sundaramoorthy said the PWD should come up with an action plan after the Lok Sabha elections and the district administration would give all necessary support to remove encroachments by forming separate teams. He also pointed out that he has received several petitions and all petitions would be looked into and appropriate steps taken.

G. Madhusudhanan, Chief Engineer, PWD, said that the department had prepared a detailed project report to undertake development works, such as strengthening of lake bunds, repairing the sluice gates and restoring the supply channel for several lakes in the Araniar-Kosasthalaiyar river basin in Thiruvallur district, for which funds have been sought from the World Bank. Mr. Madhusudhanan said that check dams at Paleswaram village was under construction at a cost of Rs. 7.74 crore and that there is a proposal to construct check dams at Kalpattu, Parapakkam, Sengathikulam and Vannipakkam, all costing Rs. 30.2 crore.

At the meeting, resolutions were passed by the members of Neer Exnora to create a Lake Authority similar to the Lake Authority formed in Karnataka State exclusively for administering the lakes and water bodies and requested the State government to issue an order making it mandatory for all the district administrations to hold grievance meeting every three months pertaining to water bodies.

At the meeting, several farmers who depended on 40 waterbodies in the district, complained about encroachment of lakes and channels, severe damage to the lake bunds and poor maintenance of sluice gates. The farmers blamed the local PWD officials for poor desilting work on lakes and wanted proper ‘maramathu’ work to be undertaken.

N. Mahalingam, a resident of Manali, said Thiruvottiyur Municipality had damaged a lake by pumping sewage water and reduced the lake area due to encroachments.

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