Source: Times of India
CHENNAI: Since last
year, R Selvakumar has stopped taking water from the Nanmangalam Lake and has
been irrigating his farm with well water. Reason: the water in the lake has
become unfit for use, thanks to the indiscriminate discharge of waste from a
nearby complex of 300 independent houses.
The complex, which
came up three years ago in Jayendra Nagar of Sembakkam, has a sewage treatment
plant where waste water from all the houses is collected. While the treated
water is used for gardening, the untreated portion is let out into the lake.
Ironically, a signboard in front of the lake (facing the complex) warns that
action would be initiated under the Lakes Protection and Removal of
Encroachments Enforcement Act 2007 against the dumping of garbage and discharge
of contaminated water and other effluents into the lake.
Nanmangalam, one of
the important panchayats in the southern suburbs where farming is still the
main occupation, has more than 700 active farmers with 500 acres of farmland.
These people, most of them marginal farmers, now either depend on farm wells or
wait till the monsoon sets in.
Environmentalist
Foundation of India (EFI) has taken up the lake for cleanup. So that it becomes
a habitat for frogs, plants, snakes, fishes and birds.
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