CHENNAI:With the Hindu Religious and Charitable Endowments (HR & CE) Department failing to reclaim its three-acre plot at the Selaiyur-Chitlapakkam border, youth from the area have taken it upon themselves to clean the plot that was filled with trash and sewage.
The youth from Thiruvalluvar Nagar have fenced the plot to prevent further dumping of domestic waste and removed the existing waste using JCBs.
"We were tired of asking the temple administration and Tambaram Municipality to clean the trash and so we decided to do it ourselves," said K Jeevanandam, a youth who contributed money for the clean-up operation.
The youth have also begun construction of a badminton court and a cricket pitch on the land.
"If the HR & CE Department wants to utilise the land eventually, we won't protest. For the time, a playground is better than a dump yard," said a temple priest, who claimed to have organised sponsorship for building the badminton court. "We were afraid this plot would become jsut like the Chitlapakkam dump yard," he said.
Express had reported in February how the HR & CE Department had turned a blind eye to the Tambaram Municipality draining a portion of its sewage into the three-acre plot.
While the residents of Thiruvalluvar Nagar have managed to restrict the sewage to the extreme portions of the plot by constructing mud bunds, sewage continues to reach the backyards of houses in Chitlapakkam via the HR & CE's plot.
After the monsoon last year, top officials visited the spot and assured a proper channel for the surplus water from the Selaiyur lake, which runs off into the plot mixed with sewage. However, locals claimed that only temporary measures such as plastering the end of the drain to reduce the quantum of water reaching the plot have been taken.
‘HR & CE Dept to blame’
Officials in the Tambaram Municipality maintained that the HR & CE Department refused to permit them to construct an underground channel to prevent water stagnation. Ramesh, an executive officer for the Velachery range of the HR & CE, under whose purview the plot falls, was not available for comment