The Water Resources Department (WRD) will turn its focus on the long-pending issue of clearing commercial encroachments along the Cooum.
At present, the department is demolishing about 500 more structures encroaching upon the river at Arumbakkam, after relocating residents. With this exercise, the department has recovered nearly two hectares of the river at Dr. Radhakrishnan Nagar in Arumbakkam.
Officials of the WRD noted that about 100 commercial structures, including a wedding hall and shopping complex, had encroached upon the river. New encroachments, including a government bar, were mushrooming in the stretch and took up nearly 30 m of the river’s width.
“We plan to proceed with the eviction process this month and retrieve a minimum of 0.5 hectares of encroached space. Once the exercise is completed, an encroached portion running for a length of nearly 700 m at Arumbakkam will be retrieved,” said an official.
Stiff resistance and court litigations had delayed the process of removing commercial encroachments since 2018.
Officials recalled that areas along the river, like Dr. Radhakrishnan Nagar, were affected by flooding when the waterbody had its peak flow during monsoon every year. The river bed was hardly 20 m wide in the stretch, leading to the spillover. Bunds on either side were 15 m wide.
“We will get additional space of 60-70 m once the commercial encroachments are also removed. The carrying capacity of the river can be doubled to 6,000-7,000 cubic feet per second in the Arumbakkam stretch. The drive will also help resume the Port-Maduravoyal Elevated Corridor Project,” the official said.
Boundary demarcation
The department plans to demarcate boundaries along with authorities from the Revenue Department. After this, work would start to widen the river and strengthen the bunds in the retrieved portions. Moreover, the Greater Chennai Corporation would construct a compound wall and plant saplings as part of the Integrated Cooum River Eco-Restoration Project, officials added.
A total of 506 families affected by the project in Arumbakkam were resettled to the K.P. Park tenements earlier this month. The department plans to begin an eviction drive at NSK Nagar, wherein nearly 600 structures have been identified as encroachments. Another 700 m of encroached land is expected to be retrieved.
The department has so far cleared nearly 13,500 encroachments identified along the river in the city limits.
Published - April 18, 2022 09:06 pm IST
