The restoration and river front development of the Cooum were opposed by those who feared that the project would be undertaken at the expense of resettling slums on its banks to far off places.
Environmental activists, NGOs, former bureaucrats and people from different walks of life voiced their opinions at a public consultation on Thursday, conducted by Chennai River Restoration Trust, Tamil Nadu Urban Infrastructure Financial Services Limited (TNUIFSL) and Spanish technical consultant of the project LKS.
Participants said the river should not be beautified at the cost of relocating settlements to far off places, as was done during the DMK regime.
Activists also expressed discontent over the organisers’ failure to explain how the ambitious scheme would be executed. A question that failed to elicit an answer pertained to identifying the major polluters.
Noted environmental activist Nityanand Jayaraman said that while the presentation highlighted the intention to beautify the Cooum, there was no interim report to provide a basis for public consultation. If there was enough space for building parks and cycle tracks along the river, why cannot we go in for insitu houses for slum-dwellers rather than resettling them to the fringes of the city, he asked.
Jayaraman also stressed the need for a monitoring mechanism for projects like these, which should ideally have public participation and not corporate bodies alone.
Former managing director of Metro Water L M Menezes said the beautification of the Cooum could take place only if the outfalls that dump untreated waste into the river are plugged. He also mentioned how a previous project worth Rs 1,000 crore, aimed at cleaning the Cooum, went down the drain.