Furnish details on de-silting of rivers, canals in city: Madras HC

Chennai: The Madras high court has directed the Chennai corporation to furnish details relating to the steps taken to de-silt the rivers and canals in the city and the measures taken to control the menace of mosquitoes.

A division bench comprising Justices Vineet Kothari and Anita Sumanth gave the directive on a Public Interest Litigation filed by advocate A.P.Suryaprakasam.

Soon after the flood in 2015, Suryaprakasam filed the present PIL, seeking a direction to the authorities to constitute micro level disaster management and relief providing committees to co-ordinate with NGO volunteers in all the flood affected areas. This PIL came up for hearing several times and the corporation  also filed status reports. When the case came up for hearing on Tuesday, Suryaprakasam submitted that everyday prevalence of Dengue fever was increasing. Hundreds of children have lost their lives for no fault of them. Chennai corporation officials claim that they de-silted Adyar and Coovum rivers and 33 canals in the city. They also claim that they have removed 10,000 metric tones of silt, which was not true. Every year thousands of crores have been spent without any positive results, he added.

The bench said if 10,000 metric tones of silt had really been removed, it would have amounted to mountain and asked where  they dumped it. When they claim that 33 canals and 2 rivers were de-silted, what  the present status of rivers and canals is. What steps have been taken to control the menace of mosquitoes? The court wanted to know the entire details.

 If the officials failed to furnish all the details, the court would not hesitate to impose cost on them, the bench added and posted to December 18, further hearing of the case.