Velachery residents urge authorities to clear illegal encroachments

CHENNAI: Residents of Velachery urged authorities to remove the encroachments blocking the six culverts near Perungudi railway station, which prevented inundation during the rainy season.

Locals said that many illegal buildings were evicted in 2018, and they didn’t face flooding for the past two years. And, now it was spotted that compound walls were constructed recently.

The six culverts are an important source for residents of Velachery, Perungudi, Taramani, Kallukuttai and IIT village, where the rainwater flows through the culverts directly to Pallikaranai marshland. As there were no culverts constructed, the area was severely affected during the 2015 Chennai flood.

“Even after the construction of the culverts several illegal buildings encroached which blocked the channel. Later, filed complaints to the concerned officers, and they cleared the encroachments in 2018. So, during the monsoon season last year there was no inundation situation in these localities because there was steady flow of rainwater through the culvert, ” said M Balakrishnan, General Secretary, Tansi Nagar Residents’ Welfare Association.

Recently, unknown people constructed compound walls, buildings at Balakrishna Nagar, VGP selva Nagar, and Bhuvaneswari Nagar which block the water flow through the channel to the waterbody.

On May 26, the local body removed a road laid last month, similarly the residents urged the civic authorities to ensure that there is no encroachment constructed in the locality in the future.

“If the concerned department does not evict the illegal buildings, we will be severely impacted during the monsoon this year. And the government officials don’t consider such issues seriously, after a few years or months again people will encroach near the water body. They should take strict action against the encroachers, ” said K Velu, another resident of Velachery.

A senior Zonal Corporation official did not respond to the calls by DT Next.