As land prices skyrocketed and South Chennai suburbs developed rapidly, water bodies among government (poramboke) lands have become easy prey for land sharks.

At least a dozen lakes have been converted into residential colonies in the southern fringes of the city. Madamabakkam Periya Eri is one of the classic examples of a water body falling prey to land sharks and gullible individuals who are desperate to buy a land in city’s southern suburbs.

Of the original 220 acres, only 70 acres of water spread area remains now, while the rest has been ‘grabbed’ for residential projects and individual households, draining the groundwater resources of adjoining Tiruvenjeri, Vengaivasan, Noothancheri and Agaramthen.

Lakes in Rajakeelpakkam and Peerkankaranai are worst casualties of landgrab in the city’s realty hotbed. Rajakeelpakkam Eri has suffered the worst with the 160 acre lake reducing to a 10acre pond.

A sprawling 160acre Peerkankaranai Eri has only 40 acres left today. The local body concerned had even planned to ‘usurp’ the remaining land as it proposed a bus terminus there. Thanks to chief minister J. Jayalalithaa, who, during her previous regime, declared Peerkankaranai among 40 lakes as protected water bodies and helped shelve the bus terminus proposal. In Pallavaram, the municipality ‘abets’ slum dwellers encroach the Periya Eri by dumping solid waste.

A cent of land in the 120acre Hasthinapuram lake near Chromepet and Gowrivakkam lake is available from Rs2 lakh, Kannapiran (name changed), a realtor busy operating in the area said. Mudichur resident Anbu Johnson says Mudichur, Lakshmi Nagar and Ulavayil lakes remain only on paper.

Lakes in Perungulathur, Guduvanchery and Nandivaram, Gundumedu and Indira Nagar are also encroached. When asked about lake maintenance, both PWD and civic officials blamed each other.

PWD: 50% of water storage lost

There was once a time when several roads were named Lake View Road owing to the sheer number of lakes. Today, the names and roads exist, but not many lakes. Residential complexes and individual households have occupied the lakes, which not only recharged groundwater but was home to rich fauna and flora that turned an otherwise concrete jungle picturesque even.

The state PWD, in its report submitted to metro water while handing over 29 lakes some years back, literally admitted that the city’s water storage capacity was reduced by 50 per cent owing to rampant water body encroachment. As per the report, excerpts of which are available with DC, about 48 lakh sq meters of the total 98.78 lakh sq meters covering the 29 lakes are under encroachment. Worse, eight lakes are “fully encroached and not in existence” even, the report says. The vanished lakes are Mogappair, Valasaravakkam, Virugambakkam, Kolathur, Senneerkuppam, Adambakkam, Ullagaram and Talakanancheri in Tambaram.

It would be unjust to not fault the government; a senior WRD (water resource department) expert admitted referring to TN Housing Board naming its Mogappair housing scheme as Eri Scheme (lake scheme). As per the report, PWD handed over only 64.15 lakh sq meters of land to metro land of the entire 98.78 lakh square meters available on its record.

The worst hit among the lakes was Tambaram Puduthangal Lake, where 9.65 lakh sq meters was encroached and PWD handed over only 77,300 sq meters to metro water.

Velachery Lake lost 7.51 lakh sq meters of the total 9.75 lakh to encroachers. TN PWD engineers could have been spared from pleading to their Andhra Pradesh counterparts every year for Krishna water, if the lakes were preserved and rainwater stored in them, WRD seniors remarked.