Eviction drive: Velachery residents protest biometric process

CHENNAI: Hundreds of residents from Jaganathapuram in Velachery protested on Monday, when officials from the Corporation and Water Resources Department (WRD) visited the area to conduct a biometric survey to carry out an eviction drive on encroachments of residential and commercial buildings near the Velachery lake.

Over 900 buildings – both residential and commercial – have encroached on the waterbody, and untreated sewage has been discharged into the Velachery lake.

The NGT took a suo moto case and urged the authorities to submit a report on the number of encroachments on the lake. When the GCC and WRD officials had visited the area on November 23 for the biometric process, residents had been against it, and so, it was postponed to Monday.

Authorities have almost completed the process at Gandhi Nagar and Sai Nagar in Velachery. “We’ve been living here for over five years. Now, the authorities said that houses will be removed and we’ll be relocated. We’re not willing to relocate to the city outskirts. If the government wants to prevent the sewage being discharged into the waterbodies, they should take action for that. Evicting us will not resolve it,” said R Dhanasekar, a resident.

Ensuring that their livelihoods would not be affected, Health Minister Ma Subramanian urged the residents to allow officials to conduct the biometric process as per the order. Later, residents withdrew the protest.

However, activists at Velachery have urged officials to restore the lake at the earliest by removing encroachments, so that the waterbody could store excess rainwater, thereby preventing inundation during the monsoon seasons. “The storage capacity of Velachery lake is equal to at least 10 lakes and ponds. The government should relocate the residents and evict the buildings to prevent sewage discharge into the waterbody,” said M Balakrishnan, an activist at Velachery.