Veli, Akkulam lakes to be de-silted soon

A high-level meeting chaired by Chief Minister V.S. Achuthanandan on
Monday decided to expedite steps for de-silting the water
hyacinth-infested Akkulam and Veli lakes in the city. The meeting
decided to utilise the Rs.4.29-crore fund provided by the Union
Ministry of Environment and Forests through the National River
Conservation Directorate for the environmental regeneration of Veli
and Akkulam lakes four years ago. The grant-in aid is lying unutilised
with the Kerala Sustainable Urban Development Project.This is the
first instalment of Central share, which is 70 per cent, for the Rs.
24.36-crore project. The meeting, attended by Minister for Water
Resources N. K. Premachandran and Minister for Law and Parliamentary
Affairs M. Vijayakumar, decided to seek the services of the Kerala
State Maritime Development Corporation and Travancore Cements, a
public sector undertaking, for the de-silting of the two lakes. It was
also decided to remove the sand bar set up for constructing the
Akkulam bridge on the Kazhakuttom-Inchivila NH 47 bypass. Once the
sand bar is removed, boats can move freely from Veli to Akkulam and
back.
The meeting was told that Irrigation Department had awarded the work
for constructing new boat jetties at Veli and Akkulam. It was also
decided to remove an island-like formation, a result of the
accumulation of water hyacinth, near the boat club at Akkulam. An
earlier proposal was to set up an aviary on this structure to attract
tourists. This is being removed as it is a hurdle for boat operations
and facilitates accumulation of water hyacinth.
The meeting also decided to expedite steps to make the Kollam-Kovalam
stretch of the State waterway navigable. It was told that 1,500
families living along the waterway had to be displaced. The work on
the 74-km Kollam-Kovalam and the 348-km Kottapuram-Neeleswaram
stretches of the State waterway needs to be completed to cover the
State from north to south through the waterway. The 205-km long
Kollam-Kottapuram National Waterway III has already been thrown open
to traffic over a year ago.

The Hindu, July 21