CHENNAI: The work on a new reservoir to supply drinking water to the city has been hit by protests by the villagers of Kannakottai in Tiruvallur. But officials of the Water Resources Department say the works will be completed by the end of this financial year.
“The deadline to complete the work was September 2015, but we will be completing it by March,” an official told City Express. The reservoir is being built on 1,488 acres of land (800 acres of patta land and 688 acres of poromboke land), nearly 14 km away from Uthukottai — the State’s entry point for the Kandaleru-Poondi Canal.
The work on the project was hit after 46 of the total of 571 land owners opposed land acquisition for constructing the reservoir and filed a case.
The court dismissed their petition and 10 persons agreed for a one-time settlement. The remaining refused to accept the compensation and it was deposited with the court, the official said.
Currently, the bund work is going on, but members of the Water Resources Department are facing opposition from Kannakottai villagers. A total of 600 acres of land is being acquired from the village for creating the reservoir, of which 200 is being used for bund formation.
The issue revolves around 400 acres of land where villagers have sown crops. According to villagers, continuing work on the water body would lead to a substantial loss for them in terms of the money they have invested in farming this season. Agreeing to their pleas, the District Collector has asked the PWD to restrict its work to bund formation till the harvest is over in the next few months. “This is inside the reservoir area or also known as water spread area. It is not a working area, although the land is acquired for reservoir,” the WRD official said.
“Now we have finished bund work for four to five kilometres. However, the work on 200 acres that lies in Kannankottai village is pending. As villagers have opposed acquisition of the land where they have sown the crops, the district administration has asked us to wait for three months till the crop is harvested,” the official said.
“This won’t have any impact on the bund work as it is not in the working area. We are planning to complete the work by March 2015,” the official added.