Encroachments, mostly asbestos roofed houses attached with cattle sheds, were demolished on the dry Kaundinya river bed, a tributary of Palar, in Gudiyatham town in Vellore on Thursday. It was done to prevent any obstruction of water flow in the river during monsoon.
| Photo Credit: Special Arrangement

Encroachments, mostly asbestos roofed houses attached with cattle sheds, were demolished on the dry Kaundinya river bed, a tributary of Palar, in Gudiyatham town in Vellore on Thursday. It was done to prevent any obstruction of water flow in the river during monsoon.

Officials of Water Resources Department (WRD), which executed the demolition work, said that during patrolling of the dry riverbed, make-shift houses with milch cows and goats were found. During summer, wild plants grow on the dry portions of the riverbed. A group of residents, especially landless dairy farmers, settled near the bank of the river. They migrate to elevated areas in the town during monsoon. “We noticed the encroachments during mass cleaning work along the river bank. Illegal structures on the riverbed were razed,” S. Kalipriyan, Assistant Engineer (AE), WRD (Gudiyatham), told The Hindu.

An alternative site is being identified to provide free land for displaced families on the compassionate grounds. As per norms, each affected family is eligible for a maximum of three cents of land on two conditions, namely, on no regular income and no properties registered in their names.

As part of northeast monsoon preparedness, the WRD officials said that removal of obstructions on the water flow in the river during monsoon has been undertaken for the past few days. A distance of around two kilometers along the river will be covered.

The officials said that the river got its water flow, mostly when surplus water is released by the district administration from Kaundinya reservoir. Water in the river and reservoir helps to irrigate around 8,300 acres of farmland in at least 13 villages around Gudiyatham town.

Earlier, WRD officials demolished over 2,500 encroachments, which were in existence for more than two decades, in Bodipettai, Bhuvaneswari Pettai, NSK Nagar, Pavodum Thoppu villages on both sides of the dry river. These encroachments were built on the route that discharges excess rainwater from the town and nearby farming villages to the river. A portion of the retrieved land was bitumen topped between Semballi and Thalayatham villages, a distance of 2.5 km, for free flow of traffic in Gudiyatham town.