The portion of 200-Feet Radial Road, which has been dug up for constructing the channel in Pallikaranai.
| Photo Credit: R. Ravindran
Residents of Pallikaranai have complained about the undue delay in the construction of a channel to convey excess water from the Narayanapuram lake to the Pallikaranai marshland through 200-Feet Radial Road. The portion of the road that has been left dug up for the work is making it increasingly difficult for motorists and pedestrians to navigate the stretch.
The ₹44-crore project to construct a 900-m channel was started in September 2024 to reduce inundation in nearby areas, including Sunambu Kolathur. The work already started later than planned due to reasons including obtaining permissions from various other departments.
Members of the Ramaniyam Ocean Dew Residents’ Welfare Association, Pallikaranai, said the road had been narrowed by the incomplete work, and vehicles resorted to using the service lane on most days owing to heavy traffic.
Sowmya Vasudevan, a member of the association, said the roadblock and traffic diversions, which had been in place for over five months now without much work getting done on the site, posed a risk to pedestrians. They have been forced to vie for space with vehicles, sometimes headed in the wrong direction.
Residents said parking vehicles on the already narrowed road in order to visit nearby commercial establishments added to their woes. David Manohar, a resident and activist, said the channel could have been laid from the southern part of the lake instead of the already bustling 200-Feet Radial Road. Moreover, surplus water from the lake could have been linked to the Highways Department’s storm-water drain network.
Officials of the Water Resources Department said they had only completed 200 m of the 900-m channel over the past five months. Besides the Northeast monsoon, the delay in getting permissions to build the channel from various departments, including the traffic police, led to the slow progress of the project. The project was envisaged with the aim of conveying nearly 1,000 cusecs of run-off to the Pallikaranai marshland and decrease inundation in the surrounding areas.
Published – February 03, 2025 06:30 pm IST