TIRUCHY: The expected onset of the northeast monsoon is still about a week away but the unseasonal rains over the past few days has sufficed to bring back water stagnation woes for residents of Thuraiyur in the district. Rather than desilting the two main lakes and ridding its feeder channels -- which carry run-off water from Pachamalai Hills to the taluk -- of encroachments and garbage, government departments pass the onus on each other, rue residents.
While the rainwater stagnation woes are so much in the rural belt of Thuraiyur that it has led to the cancellation of bus services in the taluk’s villages over the past two days, tahsildar G Pushparani said her team is constantly on ground to tackle the menace and expressed hope of the floodwater draining away in a day or so. Perumalpalayam, Maruvathur, Selipalayam, and Renganathapuram are a few of the villages that report water stagnation.
When it, however, comes to stagnation woes the urban part of Thuraiyur reels under, authorities are quick to point fingers at each other. Thuraiyur municipality Commissioner S Suresh Kumar said, "We have arranged for sand bags to contain the breach at Periya Eri. However the lake being maintained by the PWD is the source for the problem. We have referred the issue (stagnation woes) to them.” When enquired, a senior PWD official in Thuraiyur said,
“To clear the garbage along the course between the two lakes (Periya Eri and Chinna Eri) is the municipality's responsibility as is clearing encroachments in their feeder channels. We have been continuously telling the municipality to build sewage canals in the locality but they are not interested.” The municipality is understood to be bereft of sewage canals, making the public to discharge waste into the water channels feeding the lakes.
S Kamaraj, an activist, points out, "The run-off water from Pachamalaj reaches the Periya Eri, floods the town and heads to Chinna Eri. From there, carrying all kind of waste it joins the Mukkombu (Upper Anaicut)." T Mani, the secretary of Thuraiyur people's welfare association, said,
"We have been submitting petitions with the PWD and the municipality but both pass the buck of resolving the issue to the other. With every monsoon season over the decades, we have been affected badly. Both the lakes must be desilted and the feeder channels must be cleared." When contacted, District Collector M Pradeep Kumar said that he has already taken up the issue and assured of necessary action.