Chennai: The newly constructed Semmencherry police station and all other encroachments in Thamaraikkeni lake in Sholinganallur must be removed to fully restore the shrinking lake, said IIT-M before Madras High Court.
Following this, the Madras High Court on Monday directed the State government to appoint an expert body to come up with the best possible solution to rejuvenate Periya Eri, a mosaic of tanks, consisting of Velaleri tank, Velalkani tank and Thamaraikani tank at Sholinganallur.
After two faculty members from the Indian Institute of Technology-Madras reported largescale encroachments by the government as well, the court wanted to know if the restoration work could be undertaken now by displacing or dislodging the least number of people.
Tasked by the court to study the encroachment made to build a new Semmenchery police station and suggest if its demolition would help, the team informed the court that the mere razing of the police station might not help restore the water body.
“Given the high level of encroachments within the indicative tank boundary total restoration of the water body appears to be neatly impossible without mercilessly removing all the public and private infrastructure so that the sanctity of the water line boundary’ could be preserved, recovered. and restored in total,” the report filed by the team said.