With the city needing more roads to accommodate more vehicles as the number of vehicles is increasing day by day, Government officials are coming up with new ideas to ease the mobility in town atleast for smaller vehicles by creating roads.
However, the only major problem the idea seemed to be having was the compromise the experiment made with the depletion of natural resources. The bunds of the lakes were seen as potential alternatives and as a pilot project, the bunds of the Ukkadam Big Tank was made into a Road for two wheelers and cars.
Though the two-lane Road helped largely in reducing the traffic on the Ukkadam to Aathupalam Road, according to experts, the biodiversity of the Ukkadam Big Tank, which is one of the largest big tanks, was largely tampered with.
While this project was not welcome by nature lovers in the first place, additional proposals to lay Roads on other lake bunds including those of Valakulam and Kurichi came up. The work at the Valankulam tank came to a halt at the end of the tenure of the former council.
The recent works carried out at the Kurichi wetland has also caused a concern among activists as the Road that is being laid on the bunds of the wetland is reportedly cuts a canal that leads water to the tank.
The complaint has come up weeks after a group of individuals petitioned the District Collector about uncleared encroachment on the Raja Vaikkal (Raja Canal) that takes water to the lake. While situation is such, the size of another canal leading to the lake is reportedly blocked by the Road that is being laid.
Activists have claimed that since the canal takes storm water largely during monsoon, it would indirectly cause a flood situation during rainy season to populated areas nearby and have requested the administration to clear the encroachment on all the canals leading to the lake.
Reacting to this issue, a senior official from the Coimbatore City Municipal Corporation said that all the canals linking lakes would be cleared, which was one of the major projects for the Smart City Scheme. “The canals would be identified and encroachments cleared,” the official added.