Did Metro Rail encroach upon water bodies, HC asks TN

“It is a million-dollar question as to whether any earnest steps have been taken by the officials in preserving water bodies during the implementation of the Metro Rail Project in Chennai, despite depleting ground water and severe threat of water scarcity” the Madras High Court observed on Wednesday while passing interim orders on a plea seeking to institute appropriate water management systems through GPS based instruments.

A division bench comprising Justice M Venugopal and Justice S Vaidyanathan, said, “According to the report of Comptroller and Auditor General of India for the year ended March 2017, encroachments on water bodies accounted for 49 per cent of the total objectionable encroachments, which may include the railway projects also.”

Also, noting that despite our State having all the resources and due to official apathy in its preservation, we are made to beg for water from others, the bench added, “In foreign countries, if a sketch for any underground project is prepared, the officials would, at the first instance find out the way for free flow or diversion of ground water and thereafter execute the project and in case there is no feasibility of ingress and egress of water underneath, the project itself would be cancelled.”

 However, the bench on offering the State time until March 18 for filing a status report on the action taken for safeguarding water bodies, said, “This court makes it very clear that the desilting process has to go on parallelly to ensure that the existing water bodies are preserved. The authorities are expected to complete the process at the earliest and if the water bodies are not saved, it will be very difficult for the survival of the future generation and they could see water only in the sea and not anywhere.”