Is there a possibility of restoring the Buckingham Canal, especially within the city where the encroachments, including the Mass Rapid Transit System (MRTS), have very nearly killed it? As the government makes another attempt at reviving the canal that snakes through the city’s eastern coast, concerns over resettlement could become a talking point because the slum dwellers demand in situ or proximate resettlement and reside at a high-profile constituency represented by Udhayanidhi Stalin, the Chief Minister’s son.
Among the government’s long list of attempts is the latest project by the Water Resources Department (WRD) to restore the canal on a 2.9-km stretch, between Swami Sivananda Salai and Dr. Radhakrishnan Salai, as a pilot project. It has come after three years of different proposals for eco-restoration of the canal through the Chennai Rivers Restoration Trust.
According to the policy note of the WRD for 2023-24, administrative sanction has been accorded for the “comprehensive restoration and rejuvenation” of the “Buckingham Canal and its associated drains and major drains flowing into the Adyar and Cooum rivers” at a cost of ₹1,281 crore. The pilot project is aimed at turning the waterway into a recreational navigation channel, with sustainable flood management, ecological restoration and waterfront development thrown in, according to officials.
The other line departments will pitch in for the interception of sewage, waterfront development, flood mitigation and revival of navigation. One of the solutions proposed for flood management is construction of locks on the pilot stretch to keep sewage out of the canal and to regulate peak floodwaters surging into it from the Cooum and the Adyar.
Sources in the WRD say three modular sewage treatment plants to treat nearly 30 million litres a day of sewage have been proposed in land belonging to the Higher Education Department along the stretch. The possibility of laying an interceptor tunnel, parallel to the waterway, to divert sewage to the treatment plants would also be studied.
While the Greater Chennai Corporation will have a significant role in greening and beautification, an inspection will be conducted with Southern Railway to identify obstructions to navigation, the sources say. The Tamil Nadu Water Investment Company Limited has been tasked with preparing a detailed feasibility report and a project report in three months.
Displacement fears
While its contour is likely to become clear only after these reports are prepared, the project has already started facing headwind because of the most challenging problem it has to overcome — the rehabilitation of families living along the canal for several decades in localities like Lock Nagar, at the rear of Victoria Hostel, Sivarajapuram, Sunguvar Street, Mattan Kuppam, Rotary Nagar and Neelam Basha Dargah. While the number of families that will be affected is not yet available, a government order issued in 2020 said 15,360 families would be affected by the eco-restoration of the entire canal in the city. The policy note of the Tamil Nadu Urban Habitat Development Board (TNUHDB) for 2020-21 put the number at 17,564.
Sources say the Central Buckingham Canal, stretching between the Cooum and the Adyar, has nearly 6,000 families to be rehabilitated, including around 1,200 on the stretch taken up for the pilot project. The government appears keen on expediting the implementation of this project, the area of which entirely falls in the Assembly constituency of Chepauk-Thiruvallikeni represented by Mr. Udhayanidhi, who is also the Minister for Youth Welfare and Sports Development.
However, there has been a stiff resistance to the project in some of the affected localities. Refusing to provide biometric data for the survey to enumerate the families, the residents have demanded an assurance that they will be resettled in situ or within a five-kilometre radius.
M. Manikandan, a daily wager from Lock Nagar, says all they demand is clarity on where they will be resettled. The livelihood of both him and his wife revolves around the locality, and his three children go to nearby schools. “My family has lived here for generations. We cannot go to faraway places,” he says.
“The officials know where they [the TNUHDB] have houses or where new houses are built. Why can’t they share the details,” he asks. He adds that there are fears among the people that providing biometric data will be treated as a consent to be resettled to any location the government prefers. Recent history suggests that their fears could come true.
Thousands who have been evicted from the Cooum banks have been settled at Perumbakkam and Kannagi Nagar, about 25 km from their original place of residence. The thriving presence of information technology companies along the Old Mahabalipuram Road was supposed to aid these people in their livelihood, but COVID-19 and subsequent developments have not helped the resettlers, who complain about poor quality of life.
S. Ranjith, another resident, says, “All our data, including fingerprints and photographs, were collected when the AIADMK was in power. What happened to them? Moreover, to decide the location for resettlement, they just need the number [of families]. Why insist on biometric data and signing of forms?” S. Mahalakshmi, yet another resident, says they will be happy to relocate if they are provided with housing in nearby locations. “The majority of us here do not have toilets and have to relieve ourselves in the open. Snakes are a problem. Even a couple of months back, we had a case of snake bite.”
According to K. Saravanan, a resident of Sivarajapuram, a government-owned vacant land was available nearby where houses can be built for a good number of the affected families. “However, officials say it belongs to another department and cannot be transferred.” He adds that some officials, during informal discussions, mentioned Ernavur and Kargil Nagar, located far away, as options for resettlement. “We are afraid that we may be coerced into shifting there.”
After failed attempts to convince the people, the government organised a meeting at the Tahsildar office at Raja Annamalaipuram two weeks ago. Without providing any information on resettlement locations, the officials, however, assured them that the government would earnestly try to resettle them in nearby locations, only after getting their consent. After they insisted that officials give an assurance in writing, the South Chennai Revenue Divisional Officer issued a letter, in which he mentioned that he had suggested that the District Collector recommend to the government to consider the people’s request to relocate within a five-kilometre radius. The letter, not surprisingly, failed to convince the people.
Long-term strategy
Historian V. Sriram, in a recent blog post titled ‘Yet Another Buckingham Canal Restoration’, said those residing in the slums would be the soft targets for eviction, while large-scale encroachment by the politically powerful would remain untouched. “While it is a fact that the Buckingham Canal looks its worst within the city, the actual cause of pollution lies elsewhere. It is well-known that thermal power plants at the northern end of the city dump hot water and fly ash and debris into the canal, thereby killing whatever little bio-life that can exist,” he said.
He said that if the government was serious about the canal, it ought to pause and reflect on what restoration really meant. “If the idea is to make this a navigable and thriving waterbody, plans have to be on a long-term basis, needing vision and commitment across multiple administrations... And that demands political resolve, and not just a desire for good optics. In the absence of all of this, any talk of canal restoration can only mean cosmetic changes,” he said.
Vanessa Peter, founder, Information and Resource Centre for the Deprived Urban Communities, says the government should ideally prepare the detailed project report with a social impact assessment before beginning talks with the people on resettlement. Arguing for a plan that will restrict the resettlement to the minimum extent possible, she questions the delay on the part of the government in finalising the Resettlement and Rehabilitation Policy, whose draft was released in October 2021. In May 2022, when the demolition and resettlement of encroachments along the canal at Govindasamy Nagar following a court order became an issue, Chief Minister M.K. Stalin announced in the Assembly that the policy would be brought in soon, but it has not materialised yet. The draft policy, in fact, mentioned a series of measures to build confidence among the community before commencing the enumeration for resettlement.
The Communist Party of India (Marxist), which has intervened in the issue, has demanded more transparency from the government in the project. G. Selva, Chennai Central district secretary of the party, has asked who are the beneficiaries of the project if the people living along the river banks for generations are to be evicted to faraway places. At a public meeting organised by the party at Triplicane last Friday, he asked the ruling DMK to be cautious about relocating the people since they formed its core support base in Chepauk-Thiruvallikeni.
An official of the TNUHDB says that while in situ development options along the stretch look remote now, there are projects coming up in places like Lloyds Road where many families can be resettled. As for the Resettlement and Rehabilitation Policy, he says it is likely to be finalised soon as a framework instead of a policy.
Appealing to the people to participate in the enumeration, he says they need not fear that the participation will be treated as consent for relocation to any place the government wishes.
It has to be noted that not residents of all the areas are opposed to the enumeration. As of last week, the officials enumerated around 550 families from Mattan Kuppam, Sunguvar Street and Neelam Basha Dargah, where the people have expressed their confidence that Mr. Udhayanidhi will keep his electoral promise of resettling them in a nearby area. It will be a challenge for the government to implement this ambitious pilot project while walking its talk on the resettlement.
Nearly a decade ago, elaborate plans were devised to develop the stretch between Pulicat and Ennore and between Sholinganallur and Marakkanam for cargo vessels of around 300-tonne capacity and passenger vessels to navigate. It remains a non-starter because of differences between Inland Waterways Authority of India and the Tamil Nadu government. At present, the State government has set the ball rolling for desilting and widening of the Buckingham Canal between Ennore and Muttukadu, a part of which is being taken up under the Chennai Rivers Restoration Trust.
