Putheri restoration disrupted after private parties claim ownership of 'lake bed'

CHENNAI: In a turn of events, the restoration of Putheri Lake in Pallavaram, where heaps of garbage was dumped last month, hit a roadblock after a group of people thronged the lake area, in protest, claiming ownership of a part of the "lake bed".

On January 11, a group of about 10 people, aged between 20 to 35, protested at the lake bed and urged the Municipality officials to not go forward with the restoration as it was their land. Only earlier that day, the Regional Director of Municipal Administration (RDMA) Mujibur Rahman visited the lake to inspect the restoration work and expand the lake by desilting. This was after overnight heaps of garbage was dumped into a portion of the lake. Officials said that the RDMA had also contacted the Revenue Department, requesting them to survey the lake.

The group of protesters had produced to the Municipality a land-deed document, allegedly obtained by illegal means, which says they own 2,182 square feet of the lake area. Since then, the restoration work has been stopped.

However, activists immediately took up the issue and retrieved documents of the lake's survey number and the survey number of lake-bed land owned by the persons. According to the documents accessed by TNIE, the lake's survey number is 273, and the land records map also shows the same, showing the huge lake at the survey number of 273.

Similarly, the land-deed documents retrieved from the private persons, showed a survey number 273/6, which actually has been carved out from the lake only in July 2020, during the pandemic. TNIE could not contact these individuals for comment.

Activists said that till the date the garbage was dumped, this has been a lake and nobody had come to claim ownership of this land. "Suddenly now, few persons are coming with land documents which have a sub-classification of the lake's survey number," they said."How can the lake's survey number be sub-classified and be given to private persons? The survey number 273 fully belongs to Putheri and it cannot be sub-classified as it is a waterbody," said David Manohar of Arappor Iyakkam, an anti-corruption NGO.

Manohar raised this issue with the RDMA, who responded, saying that there was little he could do as the persons had a land deed. "The patta has to be cancelled through the revenue department," the RDMA had replied. The group of persons apart from disrupting the restoration, have also fixed metal poles to classify "their land" and have set up an underground pipe connection, which appears to be a bore-well.

When contacted by Express, Ravichandran, Revenue Divisional Officer of Tambaram under which the Pallavaram Municipality falls, said the RDO would survey the lake-land again and cancel the land-deed of the private persons if it is found inside the lake.

"We have been following this up and there could be some errors while allotting patta to them. We will survey the lake during the coming working days and patta will be cancelled if land is found inside the lake," he said.

Due to this disruption, the Municipality has temporarily stopped the lake restoration work.