The Korattur Lake is located in Northern Chennai over an expanse of 540 acres. With the city days away from the North East monsoon, Arappor Iyakkam, which works for social welfare, has started a campaign to raise questions about the alarming condition of the lake and how it can lead to another flood for residents of Korattur.
The press release states, “One of the main reasons for the flood in Korattur during the 2015 rains was that the Korattur excess water overflow canal was never desilted.”
Moreover, the other reason for the flood was that the water that came through the Korattur excess water overflow canal could not merge with the Villivakkam and Retteri lakes close to the 100 Feet Road. This water then crossed the train tracks and reached Villivakkam SIDCO Nagar. The residents had to suffer for over 20 days because of the flooding.
The activists claim that the corporation began desilting work on February 3, 2016, and have been trying to convert the canal into a concrete one. The work to build and maintain the Korattur excess water overflow canal and the passage to Retteri is proceeding very slowly, say the activists.
However, the water passes close to the 100 Feet Road and reaches Retteri. “This particular stretch is encroached upon in many places and is also in a very bad condition. In this stretch, there is also a passage for the water in the form of culverts in two places, to cross the 100 Feet Road. One of these passages is the Anjugam canal. Both these passages are in bad condition. Instead of fixing these, the Corporation is creating a smaller canal to cross the 100 Feet Road,” states the release.
The activists also claim that the canal passage to Retteri has been blocked for the purpose of building the canal in concrete, because of which water from the last rains is still stagnant in AVS Nagar.
The activists add that the residents of Korattur are still facing a problem with insects and mosquitoes because of the sewage which had earlier gone into the lake from Ambattur.
The activists want the canal to be desilted on an emergency basis and all the culverts to be modified to take the full volume of water.
They also want the dredged sand that is piled up after the desilting in the North Avenue to be removed immediately and the sewage that is stagnant because of the canal work to be taken out as well.
Moreover, in Korattur, drinking water is mixed with sewage, a problem they want the government to fix in addition to their demand that all encroachments in the lake be removed.