The Hindu: Tamil Nadu: Friday, July 13, 2018.
PIL petition
says survey, removal of encroachments not carried out in the last 10 years
With a view
to protecting all 39,202 waterbodies in the State, as mentioned in the
government’s policy note for the year 2017-18, a public interest litigation
petition has been filed in the Madras High Court seeking a direction to the
State government to implement the Tamil Nadu Protection of Tanks and Eviction
of Encroachment Act of 2007 in letter and spirit.
Change India,
a non-governmental organisation, represented by its director A. Narayanan,
filed the case alleging that the failure of the State machinery to survey the
extent of all water bodies, remove the encroachments, document the details and
desilt them on a regular basis had made the existence of the enactment, for more
than a decade, completely otiose.
When the
matter came up for admission before a Division Bench of Justices M.
Sathyanarayanan and G.K. Ilanthiraiyan, the judges wanted to know whether the
petitioner organisation had restored any of the waterbodies in the State.
To this, its
counsel replied that only the mighty State and not individual organisations
would be able to carry out the mammoth task. After recording his submissions,
the judges granted time till August 16 for filing of a detailed counter-affidavit
on behalf of the State government.
Dry and
scorched
In his
affidavit, the petitioner organisation claimed that almost all waterbodies in
the State, including the Mettur dam, was dry and scorched, and people were all
set to face an acute water crisis. It recalled that it was pursuant to a
judgment passed by the High Court on the issue on June 27, 2005 that the State
legislature passed the 2007 Act for protection of all water bodies.
As per
Section 3 of the Act, the government had to undertake a survey, based on
revenue records, of water bodies in every district and prepare proper charts
and registers.
Further,
Section 7 of the enactment required eviction of encroachers on water bodies and
restoring them to their original size. The law also provided for imposition of
penalties by way of imprisonment for three months or imposition of fine of ₹
5,000 on the encroachers for certain offences but nothing concrete had been
done so far, he claimed.
“Despite
passage of 10 years, the objectives set out in the above well-meaning
legislation have not been fulfilled. Limited responses received to RTI (Right
to Information Act) applications sent by the petitioner to few divisional
offices of Public Works Department (PWD) have brought to light the fact that
even surveys have not been undertaken in all tanks,” he said.
Maintaining
that the government in its policy note for 2017-18 had stated that there were
39,202 waterbodies in the State and of them 14,098 were under the control of
the PWD, an analysis of the RTI replies revealed survey of those water bodies
had been completed only in six out of 21 sub-divisions. Further, encroachments
had not been removed in 11 sub-divisions.
“In order to
alleviate the difficulties faced by households and farmers in Tamil Nadu, I
have no other option other than to approach this court to issue appropriate
directions to the respondent authorities. The implementation of the Act needs
regular monitoring by this honourable court without which it will never be
possible to restore the water tanks” Mr. Narayanan stated in his affidavit.
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