CHENNAI: The residents of Pallavaram woke up to a shock on Wednesday morning, after they found half of a huge lake located there, named ‘Putheri’, engulfed with garbage. The residents said this was dumped in the wee hours of Wednesday.
The lake is about 10-acres in size and it was fully restored by NGOs only last year. After the recent rains, it was brimming with fresh water. However, all that effort has gone in vain now as garbage, allegedly dumped overnight, has gone at least 25 feet down the lake, say activists and officials.
Many residents and activists gathered to the spot in protest, demanding authorities to book those who dumped it and clean the lake immediately. About a dozen police officials too gathered to the spot to inspect the issue.
Civic activist David Manohar, who first spotted this, alleged this has happened overnight as this lake was only recently restored and brimming with water.
“A huge private company is coming up near the Pallavaram garbage segregation site, where these high amounts of garbage is normally found. We do not know yet if the municipality has shifted the garbage from their site to this lake, just so that there’s no bad odour coming up near the company,” said Manohar.
M Thyagu, a member of ‘Pasumai Peruga Sutham Sei’, a local NGO involved in the restoration of this lake, also placed suspicions on the municipality.
“From where these large amounts of waste would come if not for the municipality? A huge private company is coming up near the Municipality waste segregation site and we don’t know if the Municipality cleared the waste from their site to here to avoid bad odor,” he alleged.
He said that the waste was dumped between 2 am to 6 am in the morning, and alleged that police personnel in the booth nearby refuse to give any details on the vehicles seen, despite them being on patrol that night.
Activists said that two wheelers, earth removers, trucks and SUV cars were spotted in the lake last night, based on what nearby residents said.
Activist Santhanam, who also belongs to a nearby area, said they that the public had restored the lake and now all efforts have gone in vain. “After rains, the lake had good water storage but today, it is horrible to note that some mafia group have dumped the waste there,” he said, pointing out that they are going to hold protests outside the Municipality.
However, when contacted by The New Indian Express, Pallavaram Municipality officials denied allegations of them dumping the waste in the lake.
“We don’t know who dumped the waste. Our waste goes to Kodungayur only. This is not our waste and we know where our contractors dump. Let the police find out who dumped it,” said a Municipality official.
Express has also shared the images of the garbage dumped in the lake to TNPCB Engineer Vasudevan, in-charge of the Divison and queried what action will be taken on offenders. He did not respond.