Encroachments, mostly asbestos roofed houses, were demolished in Gudiyatham along the dry Kaundinya river, a tributary of Palar, on Saturday, to restore the original width of the river and to prevent inundation of the town during monsoon.
Officials of the Water Resources Department (WRD) which executes the demolition work said that based on a detailed study, 1,413 buildings, mostly houses, were identified on both sides of the river a few years ago.
Subsequently, 1,283 encroachments were demolished more than a year ago in the first phase of the drive. Remaining structures are being razed now. “After issuing notices, we snapped the power supply that was given to the identified illegal structures, allowing its occupants to vacate by themselves. The demolition drive will be completed in a week,” R. Rajesh, Junior Engineer, WRD (Gudiyatham), told The Hindu.
With a large police team, officials of WRD led the demolition drive from 9 a.m. Most of the encroachments, which were in existence for more than two decades, are located in Bodipettai, Bhuvaneswari Pettai, NSK Nagar, Pavodum Thoppu villages near Gudiyatham. These encroachments were built on the route that discharges excess rainwater from the town and nearby farming villages to the river. In other words, the demolition drive will help to retrieve 11 hectares of revenue land along the river.
An alternative site is being identified to provide free land for displaced families on compassionate grounds. As per norms, each affected family is eligible for a maximum of three cents of land on two conditions, namely, no regular income and no properties registered in their names.
Once demolished, a portion of the retrieved land will be converted into a bitumen stretch between Semballi and Thalayatham villages, a distance of 2.5 km, at a cost of ₹28.33 crore to provide an alternative route for towns like Pernambut and Ambur to reach Pallikonda and Vellore bypassing Gudiyatham town. It will help to decongest Gudiyatham town from traffic chaos.
