Narayanapuram Lake (Waterbodies of Chennai - 21)

Narayanapuram Lake is one of the 16 interconnected wetlands, which are all parts of the larger Pallikkaranai Marshland. Initially spread over 64 acres, the lake has just 40 acres remaining. The rest are grown into multi-storey structures and 200 feet radial road. In those good old days, this lake used to be a consolidation point, as the excess of water from the nearby ponds and lakes would flow into it. Thanks to excessive concrete encroachments, this is not possible anymore.

The great lake, used for irrigation purposes for 350 hectares of land once, is struggling to survive today. Had it been maintained properly, the 2015 flood disaster in S Kulathur and Pallikkaranai could have been controlled to a great extent.

What happened to the money spent on the lake restoration project? The project does not seem to be entirely successful. With a lot of garbage and water hyacinth, the current condition of the lake is a complete disaster.

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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