First time, drive through the Madipakkam, Pallikaranai (marshland) and Sholinganallur-Akkarai
(the extended areas of south Chennai) road after 2015 flood and really fed up
seeing how things changed around esp. multi-storeyed buildings on the places
where some water bodies or marshes existed not long ago. I’m never against
development but what kind of development or cost matters and destroying a water
body or lake or marshes could never gift anything to society… everyone knows
the importance of fresh water and preserving the ground table water could never
compete with any other. The December 2015 had greatly flooded the entire areas
mentioned above and countless were rescued through boats and uplifted by helicopters,
as well food dropped from same and the main reason for submerge of houses up to
first floor were because of the construction
on lakes and marshes. I had seen the transformation of these places from marsh
grasslands to concrete grounds and had felt sad many a time how the water
sources had turned to concrete blocks. It’s apparent that without government
approval these are impossible… corruption, improper planning had made an
unbalanced development and whatever reason we built in front us to justify, the
nature rules out quite.
The
Sunday outing had been disappointing seeing the disappearance of water bodies
to concrete blocks and building and the only console was to see couple of lakes
being dredged and waiting for the freshwater (though i doubt) from the
upcoming monsoon. I stopped at the Madipakkam Lake view road for some time, and
while having a coffee, I could see people relaxing in benches and taking walks
on the paved public walk along the road and the lake. On the other side or east
bank of the lake have rows of palms trees, which is a common sighting around
the lakes in Tamil Nadu once, as these trees helps preserve ground water near
and around lakes even during dry seasons.
The Madipakkam Lake is also dry right now, where kids playing cricket
but I wish it was maintained clean.
From
there we went past the Pallikaranai marsh and it was another place to put me
upset. The weather on Sunday was pleasant, and just coming out of a noon shower
(rain), I enjoyed a super cool ride through rolled
down windows. But it wasn’t same nearing the Pallikaranai marsh on Radial road,
and we’re forced to close the windows quickly as it smelt very unpleasant. The
very reason for the bad smell was, the Chennai dumping yard is located at the
heart of marshland and I was shocked to see how speedily the garbage dump is
swallowing the shallow marsh that’s home to many species of aquatic, fishes and
birds. I have seen flamingos and pelicans in large numbers during migration
season (October-May) and I would say, still it’s a best place for bird watch
and I could see couple of watch towers but I really wonder how could one watch
birds there when even standing for a minute is hazard to health! The Sholinganallur-Akkarai
road passes through Buckingham channel is another spot I had seen birds and it’s
an open landscape adjoining the channel is another groundwater preserving area
sliding into the same pit.
Pallikaranai marshland rapidly filled up by garbage dump, creating a great environmental destructive |
9 comments:
Lovely photos but very sad ~ may you be safe as well as your family ~ namaste
Happy Day to You,
A ShutterBug Explores,
aka (A Creative Harbor)
Such a sad story, Jeevan. You can only hope things will improve in time but people have to change their ways for it to succeed.
Nature has to make way for development. So sad to lose all the beautiful nature.
Hello,
Fresh water is very important. I think building close to bodies of water should be limited. I would like to see nature win. The scenes and photos are lovely. Enjoy your day and weekend!
Thanks for this awareness post Jeevan This is such an important topic
This is the sad truths that happened in the world today when massive development took place. All the natural sanctuary and greens are gone. So we better appreciate the nature while we still can.
That is a large garbage dump that looks like it will move into the water.
The destruction of natural resources is a problem around the world. Too often 'progress' is measured by new buildings or developments. What will happen to those developments when the natural resources that sustain life are gone?
That is so sad! And terrible...
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