The government on Wednesday told the Assembly that it would use the 65 cents of land it had recovered from the Sree Vidyadhiraja Sabha near the Sree Padmanabhaswamy temple to mitigate the seasonal threat of flooding at Thampanoor and East Fort.
Replying to a submission by O. Rajagopal of the BJP, Revenue Minister E. Chandrasekharan said the government was not averse to returning to the sabha the area occupied by the small shrine dedicated to Chattamby Swamy.
Land with govt.
The rest of the land would remain vested with the State government, the Minister said.
He said the prime land known as Pathrakulam was earlier a waterbody and part of an intricate network of channels and ponds that helped mitigate flooding in the temple locality and regulated the drainage of the nearby Padmatheertham pond.
The government had now sanctioned a scientific study to revive the old water management system to resolve the annual flooding of the downtown locality, that included the famed Chala market.
The government had taken over the land after it found the Sabha had flouted lease norms and rules.
