Rajkilpakkam Lake (Waterbodies of Chennai - 16)

Spread across an area of around 21 acres, Rajkilpakkam lake is an example of a poorly maintained waterbody. It was much bigger originally. Thanks to the encroachments, this is what remains as the lake today.

Had the water hyacinths removed, the stagnating garbage cleared, and the encroachments eliminated, this waterbody could store a lot of rainwater, yielding optimum benefit to the southern outskirts of Chennai. Unfortunately, one of the biggest lakes in this locality is dying due to negligence.

Happy travelling.

Note: As per a report, there were about 650+ waterbodies in the Chennai region till the 1980s. Today, only a fraction of them exist. And most of those surviving waterbodies hardly have water, and even some of them that have water have been poorly shrunk. In Chennai, there are tank roads without tanks nearby and lake-view roads without lakes. There is a high possibility that even the few waterbodies we have today might vanish soon. I decided to visit the currently surviving waterbodies of Chennai and its suburbs and write about them in my blog as a series.

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