Drinking water source for Chennai’s southern

Kanchepuram: line-up of lorries laden with sand quarried from the Palar riverbed at Sirupinayur near Pazhayaseevaram on the Chengalpattu-Kancheepuram Road.The sand quarry set up on the Palar riverbed at Sirupinaiyur on the Chengalpattu-Kancheepuram road is all set to endanger the drinking water source available for the civic bodies on the southern outskirts of Chennai. Thousands of sand-laden lorries have been moved out from this quarry, which was opened recently.

Enquiries reveal that fine sand deposit was noticed in this area thanks to diversion of floodwater into the Cheyyar river from the Thamaraipakkam anaicut in Vellore district in 2005. The Cheyyar, branching off from the Palar at Thamaraipakkam, rejoins the Palar at Thirumukkudal just a km to the west of Sirupinaiyur.

Pointing out that the sand quarry at Sirupinaiyur would definitely affect groundwater flow into the pumping station, installed at the Palar at Pazhayaseevaram just opposite to the quarry to supply drinking water to Pallavaram and other civic bodies, the sources said the Kancheepuram Municipality had already fallen a victim to an indiscriminate quarrying witnessed on the Palar in the Vippedu and Kolivakkam areas near the town.

The first sign of water scarcity was witnessed in the middle of last month when the groundwater level at the Thiruparkadal and at Orrikai pumping stations went below the required level for maintaining daily supply to the town, owing to a diversion of floodwater into the Cheyyar from the Thamaraipakkam anaicut in 2005, they said.

The problem got compounded with a sudden ‘development’ of cracks and leaks in the supply lines from deep borewells sunk on the riverbed to the Orrikai pumping station and in the main supply line from Thiruparkadal to the Vegavathi pumping station.Consequently, water supply to certain parts of the town were disturbed for three to four days and the supply was restored after rectification of the ‘defects,’ undertaken under the personal supervision of chairman V. Rajendran.

But the situation turned worse 10 days ago after the civic body decided to restrict the duration of water supply to 60 minutes which had forced the people to scout for water sources such as public taps or roadside borewells sunk by the municipality.In the meantime, sudden and sharp showers, which lashed the town, have brought some hope to the people. While the people pin their hopes on the nature, political parties are trying to put the blame on each other.

Some political parties said the decision to divert floodwater from the Thamaraipakkam anaicut to the Cheyyar river in 2005 was the root-cause for the problem. On the other hand, another party attributed the current problem to the indiscriminate and intensive quarrying of sand from the Palar in the recent past.

Employment exchange struggled boz of crowd

Kancheepuram:Chaos prevailed at the district sports stadium on the Railway Road here for some time on Friday morning when thousands of school students assembled at the stadium to get their names registered with the District Employment Exchange. The DEE office recently issued a release saying that those who have passed the SSLC examinations could get their names registered at the stadium on June 15 and between June 18 and 22 in view of the inadequate space in the DEE office near Vaikunthaperumal Temple in Kancheepuram.

Consequently, a large number of students from different parts of Kancheepuram district arrived at the stadium right from early morning. When distribution of application forms began at around 10 a.m. students and their parents started vying with one another to grab the forms, leading to commotion.As a result, hundreds of forms were torn and rendered useless even as a team of three constables tried to bring about some order. The process of scrutinising applications and issuing identification cards to the students began at around 11 a.m. after more police personnel were posted at the stadium.

Meanwhile, enquiries revealed that the DEE officials had taken the decision to conduct the registration at the stadium as they anticipated a huge rush this year in view of the implementation of ‘financial assistance to jobless youth’ (FAJY) scheme. If a student gets his/her name registered with the DEE now itself, he or she would automatically become eligible for the financial assistance of Rs.300 per month, after graduation.Last year, only around 10000 students, who have passed the SSLC examinations, registered their names with the DEE office. On the other hand, this year on the very first day itself, more than 2000 students have gathered at the stadium, sources said.Already the number of beneficiaries covered under the FAJY scheme in the State has increased to 4.50 lakh youth in this calendar year from 3.18 lakh youth, when the scheme was launched last year.

Road roko @ Kancheepuram

Kancheepuram:Twenty-five people, including five women, of Vedal village were arrested on charges of staging a road roko on the Chennai-Bangalore National Highway on Tuesday.According to police, trouble broke out at around 10 a.m. when a police patrol team intercepted a motorcyclist, Sarathy, working as a clerk in Vedal village panchayat and warned him not to drive his vehicle in wrong direction on the National Highway. A wordy duel broke out between the police team and Sarathy.

Nethaji, a relative of Vedal village panchayat president, came to the spot and argued with the policemen in support of the panchayat clerk. Subsequently, stones were pelted against the policemen by a mob, which later blocked the traffic on the National Highway for about 20 minutes by squatting on the carriageway.

Superintendent of Police A. Amalraj and other officials rushed to the spot and removed the demonstrators from the carriageway. When the villages attempted to retaliate, mild force was used to bring the situation on the carriageway back to normalcy, police said.Bicycles and two-wheelers used by the demonstrators as part of the blockade were loaded in a goods carrier and taken away. Twenty male and five women from the village were arrested and remanded to judicial custody, police said.