Activists for declaring Tiruvallur, Kancheepuram eco-sensitive

Slam CMDA, PWD for poor planning; say it is time waterways were reclaimed

Encroachment blues:Panchayat-approved plots abutting a water body at a village in Tiruvallur district.— File Photo

The entire region of Tiruvallur and Kancheepuram districts should be declared as an ecologically important and sensitive region and demarcated as a mega watershed so that future flooding in Chennai and downstream regions is prevented, activists on water management said at a citizens’ meet on Sunday.

Speakers at the meeting, organised by Arappor Iyakkam and Magasool Trust on ‘Reclaiming our waterways’ emphasised the need to desilt the city’s drainage system before the northeast monsoon to avoid another disaster like the 2015 December floods.

Preventing floods

“No elevation mapping is done in the city. If you want to prevent floods in Chennai, you need to store water upstream,” Prof. S. Janakarajan of the Madras Institute of Development Studies (MIDS) said.

Haphazard development

“We need to have a sustainable solution. We need to restore the floodplains first. So much of land has been lost to buildings, and builders have encroached upon so many lakes. We need to protect what is left of our lakes. We have about 102.6 crore sq.ft of water spread area in tanks left,” Prof. Janakarajan, an expert on water management, said.

He said unlike in the West where cities were planned before they were built, development here happened in a haphazard manner.

“It is mostly uncontrolled and unplanned, has no futuristic approach. The CMDA has no plan…they are just a licensing authority,” he said.

Jayaram Venkatesan of Arappor Iyakkam said there was no transparency or any idea about the works carried out by the PWD.

Arappor Iyakkam and Magasool Trust presented the results of a research conducted by them to understand the reasons behind the flooding of different places. The research found that a majority of water bodies had vanished, while some had connecting channels cut off due to encroachments.

Social audit planned

The organisations plan to conduct a social audit by citizens on specific stretches of Pallikaranai, Pallavaram, Villivakkam, Mugalivakkam water channels every weekend over the next month.

Based on the results of the social audit, the PWD and the government would be pressurised to desilt, widen and take active steps on issues such as garbage and encroachments on the stretches, Mr. Venkatesan said.

They emphasised the need to desilt the city’s drainage system before the northeast monsoon