In an alarming situation, despite best efforts from various NGOs in cleaning up the lakes, encroachments on the canals leading to the water bodies in the District are proving worrisome as the encroachment is clogging the water supply in many areas here.
In a recent incident that came to light, one of the major canals that take water from River Noyyal to the Ukkadam Big Tank has been mercilessly encroached upon in a way that it would be very difficult to clean it up.
According to sources, the water has to travel 3.5 kilo meters from the Coimbatore Check dam near Perur to reach the Ukkadam Big Tank. It is near this check dam that a private company had encroached upon the canal using a road laid by the Public Works Department in 2015-2016 at a cost of Rs. 9 lakh.
However, 2016-2017, the City Municipal Corporation further widened the road making it difficult to desilt and clear out the encroachment from the canal. In addition, the sides of the canal were fenced blocking passage into it and worse, it had been dumped with Construction and Debris waste by private parties.
Wastes including plastic and household wastes are also dumped into the canal making the area look like a dump yard. If the canal is not cleaned, water would stagnate when the checkdam is full and it would flood the nearby areas. The stagnated water could also help in the spreading of various water borne diseases.
Further, with all the wastes clogging the water, free passage is denied for water to enter into Ukkadam Big Tank, which would prove fatal for the lake as it is one of the major canals.
In a recent incident that came to light, one of the major canals that take water from River Noyyal to the Ukkadam Big Tank has been mercilessly encroached upon in a way that it would be very difficult to clean it up.
According to sources, the water has to travel 3.5 kilo meters from the Coimbatore Check dam near Perur to reach the Ukkadam Big Tank. It is near this check dam that a private company had encroached upon the canal using a road laid by the Public Works Department in 2015-2016 at a cost of Rs. 9 lakh.
However, 2016-2017, the City Municipal Corporation further widened the road making it difficult to desilt and clear out the encroachment from the canal. In addition, the sides of the canal were fenced blocking passage into it and worse, it had been dumped with Construction and Debris waste by private parties.
Wastes including plastic and household wastes are also dumped into the canal making the area look like a dump yard. If the canal is not cleaned, water would stagnate when the checkdam is full and it would flood the nearby areas. The stagnated water could also help in the spreading of various water borne diseases.
Further, with all the wastes clogging the water, free passage is denied for water to enter into Ukkadam Big Tank, which would prove fatal for the lake as it is one of the major canals.