Date:01/11/2006 URL: http://www.thehindu.com/2006/11/01/stories/2006110114150400.htm

Tamil Nadu - Chennai

In Pallikaranai, a recurrent problem

Staff Reporter

Construction activity on marshland worsens flooding during monsoon

IN DISTRESS: Residents of flooded areas in Pallikaranai town panchayat make their way home through the flood water.

TAMBARAM: People living in slums and huts have been among the worst hit ever since the rains started lashing the city and its suburbs. But the plight of the lower middle class and low-income groups is no better. With real estate prices rocketing in the city, they have no option but to build homes or buy flats in the remote suburbs, far from the main roads.Scores of such families, in low-lying areas where the land has been reclaimed from lakes and ponds, are today in a desperate situation, with their houses marooned, and approach roads submerged.

In Pallikaranai, scores of families are out on the streets, waiting for water to recede so that they can get back to their homes. At Kamakshi Amman Nagar and Ma. Po. Si Nagar, some of the residents are continuing to live despite being marooned by rainwater.

If the water level were to rise during night, they would find it extremely difficult to retrieve their belongings and move to safety.

In the case of 150 huts in Kamakshi Amman Nagar, falling under ward no. 1 of Pallikaranai Town Panchayat, many of the residents have been forced to take refuge in the porticoes of individual houses in the vicinity.

V. Babu, councillor of the ward and also vice president of the Town Panchayat, pointing to the sheet of water that had covered the locality, said that flooding recurred every year due to flow of rain water from nearby areas such as Medavakkam and Jalladampettai. Water in these localities could recede only when the excess drained into the Bay of Bengal through the Buckingham Canal and the Pallikaranai marshland.

Residents complained that haphazard construction along the fringes of Pallikaranai marshland, mostly for apartment complexes, educational institutions, hospitals and software companies had caused large-scale damage to the natural eco-system. Even now, construction activity was on in full swing right inside the heart of mashland, they said. Due to this, the natural flow of water was affected, inundating low-lying areas. "We are at the mercy of nature every time it rains," said Jothi, a local resident.

Residents of these localities for the past 20 years recall that the situation started to worsen in the past 10 years or so, because of construction activity inside the marshland and fringes.