Velachery Lake – a Profile

Our ancestors created Water Bodies (Lakes & Tanks) as social necessity for serving the causes of the lives on the earth, mainly for irrigation purposes, When the human population was less and the irregable vacant land was abundant. As the eco-balance was maintained the monsoon was then more or less uniform and unfailing, and the ground water table was also satisfactory.

With the subsequent substantial increase in population, migration of people for employment opportunities and urbanisation etc the shortsighted humanbeings, neglected the water bodies, destroyed them too and converted them as house sites, commercial establishments, etc at the cost of Water much needed for the increases population. This has resulted in the environmental degradation and ecological imbalance with consequent failure of monsoon and acute water scarcity even for drinking purposes. The Government as the custodian of the public properties also neglected to maintain and protect them.

Particularly regarding Velachery Lake, due to its proximity to chennai city, (now forms part of chennai) and rapid urbanisation, its foreshore and the entire adjacent (area under irrigation) got converted as house sites. Besides, Government itself has caused allotment of 53+34 acres, out of its total extent of 265.48 acres, as house sites/ tenements through TNH Board and TNSC Board respectively. Encouraged by this, the unscrupulous encroachers also occupied total extent of 121 acres of both Lake Site and its bund. These encroachments and its dumping of garbages and letting of sewages, by the surroundings and Alandur Municipality too, have not only resulted in the considerable reduction in its area and capacity to hold water but also in pollution, loss of percolation due to gears of silting due to neglected maintenance and consequent depletion of ground water table.

The conversion of Water Body as house sites a thoughtless misuse with corresponding loss of water storage but with consequent enormous increase in water need of the increased population have landed the people in the larch for essential water, the problem being our own creation but only latter realised. The CMWSS Board, the statutory authority for meeting the water needs of the people in extreme hardships could not cope due to lack of resources.

It is high time for all concerned to rise up and act decisively and purposefully. All are mainly responsible for the sorry state of affairs. The Rain Water Harvesting now attempted, though late is quite welcome but only as an inadequate – partial step in the right direction. It will be serving the purpose only when implement stead forth in respect of water body under its critical.

Hence as a perfect remedy to all these deterioration and owes caused by the irresponsible public/anti-socials and visionless administration, and its utter failure to maintain law and order, by their suicidal omissions and commissions, immediate restoration of the Water Bodies, particularly Velachery Lake as a drinking water source has become an urgent, unavoidable necessity. Incidentally, the said body can also be put to multifarious essential public needs profitably with lot of employment, investment and infrastructural opportunities triggering economic activities beneficial to Society.

Encl.: Profile in seriatim form

Velachery Lake – a Boon or a Bane

A Complete Profile

(Presented at the Press Conference on 10-09-2005)

VELACHERY LAKE - PART 1

(Identity and basic particulars)

1. Name of the water body : Velachery Lake.

2. Survey No. Comprising it : 123/1 of Velachery Village.

3. Classification of the site : Government Poramboke (Eri)

4. It’s original extent : 265.48 acres

5. Situation : Velachery Village, Mambalam-Guindy Taluk, Chennai District

As bounded on North by Guindy and Maduvankarai South by Velachery and Adambakkam, East by Velachery and West by Alandur and Adambakkam, and as noteworthy, situated nearby the International Airport in the Southern Belt Area of Tourism and Sports attraction, where the Land Marks such as Guindy Race Course, Guindy Park, Gandhi Mandapam, Marina, Anna & MGR squares, Theosophical Society, South Asian Federation Sports Complex, Muttukadu Crocodile Farm, VGP Golden Beach, MGM and Mamallapuram etc.; exists.

6. Local body : Chennai Municipal Corporation

7. Corporation Division / Ward : 153 (153 A)

8. Custodian of the lake : PWD (irrigation); Since 1994 vested with CMWSSBd.Chennai-2.

9. Description : Rainfed irrigation Tank under Kovalam Minor basin.

10. Catchment area : 1.50 sq. miles

11. Capacity : 21 / m. cft.

12. Depth Maximum : 3.80m (12.50 feet)

13. Water spread area : 241 acres (10.50 m. sq.ft)

14. Area under irrigation : 962 acres (originally); now nill

15. It’s present extent : 57 acres only i.e. reduced to 1/5 of its original size due to unabated

Encroachments of 123 acres and Governmental allotment of 53 acres to

TNHBd and 34 acres to TNSC board (as house sites)

16. It’s present capacity : Much less than 1/5 of original capacity due to not only shrinkage in size,

caused by unabated encroachments and other occupations but also reduction in depth caused by them and the arriving areas like Adambakkam, Alandur, Maduvankarai, etc. by letting their untreated Sewage i.e. dumping of liquid and solid wastes, Weeds Silt, long neglect of maintenance and also FTL reductions avoiding inundation in the occupied lake area and facilitating them, in effect.

17. Area held under encroachment : 123 acres

18. Situation of lake bund : Once a Strong one at its southern side extending from Alandur

Municipality at the west and Velachery proper at the east, but

Weakest now due to encroachments caused / related problems.

19. Water source : Used to be full with the storm water collected from Guindy Park,

Adyar River floods, Alandur & Maduvankarai areas.

VELACHERY LAKE - PART 2

What it was ? (past condition)

1. The water level maintained in the lake not only augumented agricultural operation and recharge of ground water table in the residential wells in Alandur, Adambakkam, Maduvankarai, Velachery and Puzhuthivakkam Villages, but also provided a natural coolant atmosphere during summer. Fishing was also going on.

2. By 1965, the exodus of population in Chennai city and attendant problem of housing, free air, drinking water and roads congestion and pollution free living etc. was felt by Government.

3. It motivated the city dwellers with all hopes of better living condition to move out of the city.

4. With the aspiration for better and peaceful living conditions and availing liberal house building loan facilities they started settling down in the adjoining rural areas Chennai city neighborhoods!

5. Due to such migrations, the areas under agricultural operation got converted as house sites gradually.

6. With the conversion of entire ayacuts under Velachery lake as house sites, the lake ceased to be the Irrigation Tank, as the urbanisation caused problem.

7. To help the habitations in the lakes ayacut areas from inundation problem, due to excessive water storage but with no irrigational need, the FTL of the lake was reduced, ostensibly as flood relief to the residential areas in the lake ayacut.

8. With such storage reductions, was started to be encroached upon the water-freed catchment area as prone.

9. By 1987, the lake was ceased to be an irrigation source. Hence, the PWD felt it a burden to possess it and there was no periodical maintenance of the lake by it. The lake was left uncared for / neglected.

10. Having thus lost its interest in maintaining the lake, the PWD proposed to Government to abandon the same and even suggested the entire lake area, barring its deepest portion usable as a swimming pool, to be taken over by the TNH Board for formation of housing colonies to ease acute housing problem in city areas, and that was acted upon partly as below.

11. The Government itself alloted 53 acres of the lake water spread area for development as house sites under “sites & services scheme” by the TN H Board for sales.

12. An extent of 34 acres was also transferred to the TNSC Board by Government, for construction of dwelling houses for the platform dwellers and also for the evictees affected by the MRTS.

13. Due to these ill advised allotments, (items 11 & 12) the conservation of water in the lake as storage to preserve the environments in the surroundings and to enable the domestic wells get ground water by recharge of the acqui-fers and rising of water table was done away with in practical sense.

14. These allotments of Lake Areas reduced the Lake’s water spread areas to 178 acres, to start with, officially.

15. During these developments encroachments also of the ‘Lake’s Water Spread Area’ started picking up as unterefered with.

16. As, in view of the occupation or sizable extent of the lake as authorized house sites the storage of water had to be reduced further to avoid submersion of these, the FTL suffered further reduction.

17. Facilitated by these, the encroachments, not only by few landless poor but also by large number of land grabbers and anti socials became rampant.

18. The lake bund also suffered encroachments heavily, both for commercial and residential purposes, by reducing its height and levelling.

19. Wells too were dug up in the bund by the encroachers there by damaging / weakening the bund as prone to breach during rains.

20. The encroachments on the bund once evicted by the Tashildar, Mambalam Guindy Taluk were permitted back by the administration for political reasons.

21. By these unchecked encroachments, a challenge to the rule of law, the extent of land under unauthorized possession, shot up to as much as 123 acres, both at the lake proper and the bund.

22. As a result of the authorized occupations and illegal encroachments, both to the extent of 210 (87+123) acres, the area of the lake that remained as storeable with water, got awfully reduced to the present extent of just 55 acres.

VELACHERY LAKE - PART 3

What it is ? (Present deteriorated condition)

1. Even this Reduced Water Body spread in an area of 55 acres has been facing heavy pollution caused by the letting of untreated sewage and sullage waters from Maduvankarai, Guindy and Alandur Municipality from its residential areas as well as by the encroachers and other occupiers. The encroachers also dump even the residual of the lake with solid garbages with motives of extending the encroachments.

2. Further the existing water stpread area has collected large amount of silt

3. Due to want of desilting / dredging and dumping of liquid and solid waste, and also the heavy growth of weeds the storage capacity has reduced alarmingly.

4. The water that stands stored in the lake, being sewage mostly, it is fully polluted and it is not fit for any use, domestic or any other purpose, as found on test.

5. The lake emanating bad odour has been effectively serving the cause of mosquitto breeding.

6. In most of the encroachments the real occupiers are only tenants under few land grabbers.

7. The fast dieing lake has been the serious concern of all honest and right thinking people.

8. The Non Governmental Social Service Organisation like Federations of West Velachery and East Velachery Welfare Associations, Consumer Council of India, West Velachery Unit, and the Exnora International, as “Save Velachery Lake Forum”, are in ceaseless efforts for the reclamation of the Lake to its original glory and to put it to larger public users.

VELACHERY LAKE - PART 4

What next ? (Remedial Measures)

1. Now the lake calls for urgent-close-attention & remedy as below if it has to survive to the benefit of the society at large.

2. Not only further encroachments should be stopped forth width but also the existing encroachments in its entirety evicted proceduraly. The real / legitimitate have nots among the encroachers may have to be provided with alternative site / accommodation purely on humanitarian grounds.

3. The eligible among the evictees can normally be resettled in the outskirts of the city. If feasible; otherwise, and preferably accommodated in the high-rise tenements to be put up vertically by the state through its Housing Agencies, due to space crunch, in the portions to be conveniently carved out in the extreme sides of the lake itself, i.e. at the West of Kakkan Road – Lake - Bridge and east of Bye Pass Road - Lake - Bridge, so that these settlements will be ideally close to the other residential areas with easy approach leaving the Lake as ‘a compact one-maintainable well’. This will also motivate the eligible among the encroachers to vacate their encroachments on their own and the eviction made easy, smooth and quick

4. Out of the authorised occupiers of the Lake (in 87 acres) those in the areas well developed by TNH Board as residential with all facilities, as bonafide purchasers may perhaps have to be inevitably left out of eviction as this area of 53 acres is full of very pucca and approved constructions with ‘well laid-out roads’ and hence may not be desirable as reclamation of this area as lake is a remote possibility, as rehabilitation of them may have to face legal and other hurdles / pose host of problems.

5. But in the case of those in the area of 34 acres under TNSC Board, as its allottees, the habitations put up there for them are mostly light roofed and thus as horizontal occupation involving more space. In view of the high land value and scarcity for land, it may not be advisable to have the luxury of horizontal habitations. At the same time, considering the inevitability of reclaiming the land as the lake, all of them have also to be necessarily resettled only in the vertical tenements, to be put up as suggested above as a workable, attractive and viable solution to the serious problems in our welfare state.

As already displaced from various city places for MRTS projects etc., these occupiers should not be subjected to any unsettlement as they deserve sympathy and better treatment.

6. With these two items of 123 and 34 (157) acres of lands so redeemed and after sparing whatever extent (34 acres approximately) that may be needed out of it for resettlement of the eligible among those evicted categories of people of the area the residual along with the existing water storage area of 55 acres can be retained permanently as the Water Body in an area of 178 acres approximately.

7. The lake may be desilted, deepened and made pollution free. All loopholes for pollution should be plugged permanently, i.e. the lake should be freed from the pollution by inflow of sewage caused by the Alandur Municipality and the slum dwellers in and around the lake.

8. So also, the reclaimed area requires to be deepened uniformly.

9. Not only this whole area of 180 acres approximately will perform Rain Water Harvesting but also serve as an additional ideal reservoir (storage) facility for Veeranam and Krishna waters as Poondi, Red Hills, Cholavaram, Chembarambakkam and Rettai Eri etc, as duly interlinked, with increased storage capacity besides increasing the ground water potential in the surrounding area.

10. Though it is not a matter of right to continue as an encroacher and to claim compensation when facing eviction, in consideration of the compulsory nature of eviction imposed on them and in order to compensate the hardships caused there by some justifiable relief amount as solatium may be provided to them all as a welfare measure / on compassionate grounds and to motivate them vacate voluntarily.

11. The wells dug up in the lake bund at the south to be closed to ensure ‘bund safety’.

12. Compound wall, or fence to start with may be provided to protect against any, future misuse neither the Lake area nor the water stored there in.

13. It may be linked to Adyar river to augument ground water level, if so advised.

14. In respect of ‘item 10’ above necessary norms may be prescribed and assessment made before hand, bearing in mind the fact that many of the occupiers there are only tenants under few land grabbers, especially in the case of the Lake bund.

VELACHERY LAKE - PART 5

What it should be? (Measures for development and utility)

For proper and effective use of Velachery Lake, ‘the only Chennai city’s Water Body-Asset’, the following suggestions are made, so as provide further thoughts on the issue.

1. The water stored in the Lake by Rain Water Harvesting, storm water collection and as receipt from Veeranam Lake and Krishna River may be made available for drinking and all other domestic purposes of the surrounding area as duly treated.

2. The southern lake bund and the area adjoining should be developed as a Pucca Bus Route Road, to the maximum possible width (not less than 60’) as the shortest and straight thorough-fare link between West Velachery and 150’ Velachery Bye Pass Road, as agreed upon in the year 1994 itself, so as to provide the much needed bus connectivity facility to the various city centres and the emerging Vijaya Nagar MRTS Station and serve also an ideal diversionary route to ease traffic congestion in GST Road, thus relieving the Lakhs of people of the West Velachery and its surroundings of their extreme hardships without adequate Bus Transport facilities. As a twin objective it will also serve as a strong Bund of the Lake. The Corporation of Chennai is under constant pressure from Petition Committee of the State Legislature to complete the said road project as an ideal one badly needed for the area.

3. The immediate surroundings may be upgraded environmentally by raising greeneries with avenue trees, gardens / park.

4. Can well be developed as a tourism attraction / tourist resort.

5. Fishing Industry developed.

6. Swimming pool of international standard created.

7. Boat yard constructed, Boat club formed and regular boating and Annual Regatta conducted as a seasonal festival as done in Kerala and Kodaikkanal.

8. Declared as a Bird Sanctuary.

9. Facilities created for water aerobatics

10. Aquarium started

11. Commercial complex, Restaurant, Lodges constructed.

12. As a parallel mode of conveyance Boat Services maintained for transport of goods and public as an alternate / additional facility.

13. Provisions made for Walking and Jogging.

14. With the earth escavated in the deepening operation the bunds all around raised as a Pucca Road suitable for motoring / racing.

15. A high-rise tower with telescope be put up for viewing other city areas.

16. Good lighting facilities created around the lake to have a nice night view.

17. At the center of the Lake, giant Artificial Water Falls created.

18. For this part of Chennai, the lake to offer a feel of Marina apart from being a natural coolant, provision of what are all necessary be made.

19. Ariel car facilities provided.

20. All children attractions added.

21. Provision for the Fire Brigade to make use of the Lake at times of emergencies.

22. Crocodile farm created.

23. Fish stall opened.

24. Herbal plants – greens grown.

25. A foot or Two Wheeler Bridge constructed at a central point, as a facility for easy and short reach from South to North and vice-versa.

26. It will be a good picnic spot with necessary further additions and attractions.

27. Statues of different priorities, definitely one for Gandhiji provided.

28. Provision for light refreshments.

29. Wind mill, Solar panels installation for generation of electricity etc

30. An amusement park may be developed by agencies of international repute.

31. On the whole the area should be improved as a worthy center for relaxation of visiting foreign dignitaries.

32. The Lake may be named as “Exnora” in view of Exnora International’s signal contributions for the protection of Nature and Environment worldwide.

(A. Ramasamy),

“SAVE Velachery Lake Forum”

General Secretary, Federation of West Velachery Welfare Associations,

Senator, Exnora International,

Vice President, Consumer Council of India, West Velachery Unit.

!?@#*#$

Tuesday, April 12, 2011

voting government of India - Tamil Nadu Elections 2011

Sunday, November 02, 2008

Velachery Lake document presented to Press Club - No hear from Public or even magazines now a days