A little west of the Thadagam Road, near the Kalappanaickenpalayam Pirivu, a water channel starts its journey south. It runs along the Vijayakumar Layout Main Road, passes near Harini Layout, cross the Edayarpalayam-Vadavalli Road, enters Anna Nagar, and proceeds via Super Garden Avenue and New Thillai Nagar in Vadavalli before joining the Karupparayan Kovil Channel near Selvam Nagar.
The Karupparayan Kovil Channel then runs south and finally drains out into the Krishnampathi Tank.
The first channel, which the residents refer as just ‘odai’ (channel), runs for more than two km mostly covered by thick bushes and encroached at very many places.
Until a decade ago, even a strong drizzle brought alive the water channel with water flowing through it. Today, sadly, not a drop flows through it, rues M. Ravi, a long-time resident of Vadavalli.
He says with Vadavalli seeing many a construction, the channel width has drastically reduced and in many localities concealed between the rear compound walls of houses.
Revenue Department officials in Vadavalli say the channel, as per their records, is four metre wide and classified ‘vaari’.
One of those who have encroached the channel is the Coimbatore Corporation, which has rebuilt the PRR Nagar Main Road by closing a culvert that passes through the channel. Near New Thillai Nagar, a realtor who is developing a land, has filled earth in the channel to gain access to his land, Mr. Ravi adds. Such encroachments have been going for long and the Corporation has paid very little attention to the residents’ complaints, says S. Kuppusamy, another resident of the area.
Corporation officials say the civic body has not closed any culvert and if at all that has happened it should have been by the sheer oversight by the contractor and that too as a temporary measure to facilitate the construction.
The officials add that the Corporation will look into the issue of restoring the culvert and explore the possibility of reviving the channel as well.
The Revenue Department officials in Vadavalli and Kavundampalayam say that they have not received any complaints of encroachments in the channel and will look into any that comes their way.