Bangaru Vaickal Neeradhara Koottamaippu, a water users’ association, has urged the Puducherry government to take immediate steps to protect the Utchimedu tank in Bahour, and remove encroachments from it.
In a letter addressed to Lt. Governor K. Kailashnathan, president of the association V. Chandrasekhar said the main supply channel of the Utchimedu tank had been encroached and filled with red laterite soil. Though this has been brought to the attention of officials of the Public Works Department (PWD) and the Bahour Commune Panchayat, no action has been taken yet.
Mr. Chandrasekhar said the entire waterbody, its sluices and channels must be re-surveyed and notified in the Field Measurement Book (FMB) records and that action should be taken against those who encroached the tank. He added that while the PWD has been managing heritage waterbodies, including the Utchimedu tank, it has “miserably failed” to notice that while the re-survey was carried out, the channel was not included in the FMB records.
He said that many such incidents of land alienation had come to light, thanks to the inaction of the Puducherry Wetlands Authority, which is supposed to re-survey the entire wetlands, including tanks, ponds, estuaries, and lagoons, and take action to retrieve them from encroachers.
