India News | TNEB Told to Remove Debris in Kosasthalai River Within Fortnight
Get latest articles and stories on India at LatestLY. Holding that the state-run power utility, Tamil Nadu Generation and Distribution Corporation Ltd (TANGEDCO) has encroached upon a water body, the Madras High Court on Friday directed it to remove within a fortnight, the debris and other waste materials dumped into the Kosasthalai river in the northern part of the city.
Chennai, Nov 12 (PTI) Holding that the state-run power utility, Tamil Nadu Generation and Distribution Corporation Ltd (TANGEDCO) has encroached upon a water body, the Madras High Court on Friday directed it to remove within a fortnight, the debris and other waste materials dumped into the Kosasthalai river in the northern part of the city.
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The court directed TANGEDCO to expeditiously remove all the foreign materials from the site and obtain a certificate from the PWD engineer, exercising jurisdiction over the area, to the effect that no debris or rubbish or other constructed materials have been left in the waterbody.
"There is no dispute that TANGEDCO, which is an extension of the state government, encroached into a waterbody and orders of court required such encroachment to be removed," the first bench of Chief Justice Sanjib Banerjee and Justice P D Audikesavalu said.
The engineer may take the assistance of the Water Resources Engineering department of the IIT, Madras for conducting a study as to whether all the offending materials have been removed from the waterbody and its bed.
Such exercise be completed before the matter appears next, a fortnight hence, the bench added and posted the matter for further hearing on November 26.
Originally, while passing interim orders on a PIL petition seeking to remove the encroachments in the river, the bench on October 22 had directed TANGEDCO to remove all the rubbish, rubble and concrete materials that might have been dumped into the waterbody by October 30.
The company filed a status report today and prayed for more time to remove the debris, rubble and rubbish so that the waterbody could be returned to its pristine character. It does not have the technology to remove the RCC pipes that had been laid deep inside the waterbody, it added.
Irked over the submission, the judges, however, granted more time to remove the debris.
(The above story is verified and authored by Press Trust of India (PTI) staff. PTI, India’s premier news agency, employs more than 400 journalists and 500 stringers to cover almost every district and small town in India.. The views appearing in the above post do not reflect the opinions of LatestLY)