COIMBATORE: The Sanganoor Canal rejuvenation and development works are moving at a snail’s pace as the Coimbatore City Municipal Corporation (CCMC) has been finding it difficult to remove encroachments completely.
The dredging and development works of the Rs 49-crore project were halted by the civic body for over 10 months primarily due to the delay in shifting encroachers from lands on the banks of the canal.
The CCMC was awaiting the allotment of houses by the Tamil Nadu Slum Clearance Board to encroachers before resuming the works which were launched by Tamil Nadu Chief Minister MK Stalin during his visit to the Coimbatore district back in November 2021 soon after the DMK government came to power.
The 11-kilometre-long Sanganoor stream which passes right through the centre of the Coimbatore city has been lying dormant for several decades without any water flow.
The project works were planned to be carried out in two phases. In the first phase, which was launched by Stalin, the civic body planned to rejuvenate the canal for the first 2.2 km starting from the Mettupalayam Road to the Sathyamangalam Road at a cost of Rs 49 crore. In the second phase, the next stretch of 1 km would be revamped for Rs 30.3 crore.
The government would plan and move on to the next phase of dredging and development based on the initial two-phased development works carried out for the 3.3-km stretch at a total cost of Rs 79.3 crore, said sources.
As part of the development works, the civic body will build gabion walls on both sides of the canal, lay chip stones on the channel bed, strengthen the shores by constructing reinforced concrete walls, lay pathways for pedestrians and pave roads on one side of the stream for vehicle movement.
The works which were suspended in 2022 were resumed in June 2023. However, the works are being carried out at a slow pace by the civic body which has raised concerns among the people and environmentalists. Over 2,000 families have been encroaching upon the banks of the stream and living there for years. As they were not given proper alternate places by the Tamil Nadu Slum Clearance Board, the town planning department of the CCMC could not remove the encroachments.
