Chennai: A temple and a church have allegedly raised illegal structures on encroached land that belongs to the government at LIC Nagar, Madipakkam, according to sources.
Documents obtained from the Public Works Department (PWD) state that a notice sent has been sent to the two religious places, in order to remove the encroachments.
J Shankar, a member of Sunnambu Kolathur Residents Welfare Association, said, “These building are built on the canal that comes from the Keelkattalai lake. Whenever there is heavy rain, our area gets flooded. Between 2015 and 2017, we had a tough time, especially during the 2015 December deluge as water was stagnated for four to five feet.”
“If the canal was left undisturbed, water would have drained through it. But, since the passage for the water is blocked by the church building, the whole area faces difficulty at times of heavy rains and floods, he added.
According to the PWD notice (for removal of encroachment), sent by Engineer G Mahendra Kumar to News Today reads, “The portion of Oodai in the village Madipakkam 1, in Sholinganallur Taluk, Kancheepuram District, belonging to Water Resources Organisation of Public Welfare Department is encroached by you and your occupation. I call you upon to evict your encroachment from the said piece and part of land within 21 days from the date of this notice, failing which I shall remove the encroachment and impose the cost for removal of encroachment against you. The department shall not take any responsibility for encroachment removed from within the land disposed off.”
The notice dated 6 December 2017, was received by Paul Ramamoorthy, the proprietor of the church property, whose signature can be found on the notice. When asked about the reason for not
removing the encroachment, even after 30 months of issue of the notice, an official from the PWD said, “We are ready to remove the encroachments at anytime, but, we need protection from the police and other concerned departments to maintain law and order while removing the encroachments.”
Efforts made by the News Today to reach persons charged with encroaching the land did not yield positive results.