A drive on Thadagam Road or Sundapalayam Road brings into sight the Muthannankulam, something that was not possible until a week ago because of houses that had been encroaching upon the tank bund for many years.

Now, the Coimbatore Corporation and the Tamil Nadu Slum Clearance Board have started demolishing the encroachments.

The Corporation started demolishing the encroachments on June 6, after the Board had made arrangements for alternative accommodation for the 1,577 families who had built their houses encroaching upon the tank.

As of Saturday, the Corporation had demolished over 1,000 houses that were empty because the occupants had taken the alternative accommodation the Board had provided in Kuniamuthur, Malumichampatty, Keeranathanm, Vellalore and Ukkadam.

The families that remained on the tank bund included those who demanded land and not a house, families that had taken up the houses on rent and the sons or daughters from the families that had migrated.

The Corporation sources said that aside from those seeking land as compensation, the families that remained on Muthannankulam were there to only illegally claim an alternative accommodation from the Board, by claiming that they too had been living for long in the area and that the Board had excluded them while conducting the survey for alternative accommodation.

Sources in the Board said the organisation was exploring ways to provide alternative accommodation for those making such claims and its head office would make an announcement.

Once the Corporation cleared all the encroachments, the Corporation would begin developing the tank under the Smart Cities Mission.

Officials at the Corporation said the civic body had asked the consultant for the lake development project to visit the place to explore the possibility of increasing the water spread area while carrying out the development work.

The civic body would look at dredging the tank and reclaiming the encroached 40 acres of the water spread area, out of the total 190 acres, the sources said.