Southern States - Tamil Nadu-Chennai   

Eviction of slum families along Buckingham Canal completed

By T. Ramakrishnan

CHENNAI Aug. 8 . The ``Operation Eviction'' of nearly 2,300 slum families, living on the edges of the Buckingham Canal, was completed today.

Launched on July 30, it was carried out to facilitate desilting of the canal. The families had been living unauthorised for years on the banks of the waterway, from Lattice Bridge southwards.

For the purpose of eviction, the Government constituted a dozen teams, comprising officials of the Public Works Department, the Slum Clearance Board and the police.

``Never has such an operation been done in the recent past. The hurdles in implementing this nature of work should be appreciated as we carried it out in a totally urban area,'' said one of the team leaders, adding that the extent of the operation covered 3.5 km and one more km, wherein around 1,000 families were now living, had to be taken up in future.

``We had to remove the families from the canal banks as there was no space to ensure movement of men and machinery for clearing silt and transporting it,'' he says.

As the rationale behind the desilting operation is to ensure that the Buckingham Canal functions as a flood carrier besides allowing the free flow of seawater into the way, the official says the city residents have to understand that the ``Operation Eviction'' is done in ``their interest''.

Notwithstanding these explanations, the ``Operation Eviction'' has thrown up several questions.

The timing of the encroachment removal, prevention of future encroachment and resumption of desilting exercise are among the issues that have been raised now, as the PWD commenced the execution of Buckingham Canal desilting project about three years ago.

One explanation about the timing is that tenements at Okkiyam Thoraipakkam, as an alternative arrangement for dwelling, are ready only now.

On taking up desilting again, a senior official says the executing agency has been asked to go ahead with the removal of the bottlenecks. ``In case that agency is not interested, we have no other option than to float bids again.''

On preventing encroachments in future, the official admits it is not an easy task. ``However, we are planning to employ a set of options that include periodical monitoring and temporary fencing.''

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