Residents demand desilting of Velachery lake as flooding, infra issues remain major concerns

Though Velachery became a separate constituency in 2008 after the delimitation exercise and has seen Assembly elections in 2011, 2016, and 2021, residents claim it remains undeveloped on various fronts.

Residents have voiced concern over the routine flooding of the area, which they attribute to poor maintenance of the Velachery lake and the encroachments choking it. In addition, they cite poor road conditions and the heavy traffic congestion caused by encroachments as pertinent issues. The recent Mass Rapid Transit System (MRTS) expansion though, has been welcomed.

The constituency comprises localities such as West Velachery, Taramani, Adyar, Thiruvanmiyur, Besant Nagar, and portions of Kanagam and Adambakkam. A key constituency in the city, Velachery has developed into a thickly populated residential area with planned layouts, but its natural topography — it is a low-lying area — makes most of the residential localities vulnerable to flooding during the Northeast monsoon every year. This is attributed to the run-off from the Velachery lake, as discharge to the Pallikaranai marshland is blocked due to missing links in the storm-water drain network.

The lake, one of the biggest in the city, receives inflows from many residential areas. However, the absence of a bund on the north side, the failure to desilt and deepen the lake, encroachments, and illegal sewage inlets cause it to overflow within a few hours of heavy rains, leading to repetitive flooding.

S. Kumararaja, an office-bearer of the Federation of Velachery Residents’ Welfare Association, said the lake, which was once a boon for the residents of Velachery in maintaining the groundwater level, had become the bane of several residential areas along the Pallikaranai Marshland due to the lack of proper drainage facilities.

Mr. Kumararaja said a huge portion of the lake vanished after construction of the Velachery Bypass Road as encroachments sprung up, and the absence of a bund on the north side of the lake. Major political parties have made promises of desilting the lake for increasing storage capacity and renovating it into a boating facility, but the lake remains in a neglected state, bearing testimony to unfulfilled promises.

Meanwhile, residents of West Velachery too are worried by flooding caused by the same lake and the inadequate drain network to carry the excess stormwater to the Veerangal Odai.

The other big problem for the residents of West Velachery, consisting of AGS Colony, Andal Nagar, Saraswathi Nagar, and Bhuvaneshwari Nagar, has been the lack of a big access road, similar to the Inner Ring Road, to link it with the Velachery Bypass Road.

They also flag the traffic chaos at Vijayanagar Junction despite the construction of massive flyovers branching off the Bypass Road to Taramani Link Road and Velachery Main Road. Residents point out that the presence of the bus terminus and the restriction on two-way traffic on these two flyovers have caused traffic snarls at the junction, with vehicles queued up for more than half a kilometre on the Taramani Link Road and Velachery Main Road on occasion. Meanwhile, traffic on both the flyovers remains low, while congestion continues below.

S. Pattabhiraman, a resident of Ram Nagar, said when the Velachery railway station was established several years ago, the State government had planned a multi-modal transport facility by allotting huge land parcels on the south side of the station for the construction of a new bus terminus similar to the facility in Kilambakkam. However, the project was not taken up for more than a decade, he added.

Long-time residents also wanted the 110-kilo volt (KV) electricity substation to be upgraded into a 230-KV substation. The substation located on Velachery Main Road could not be expanded due to land constraints, though power consumption has been increasing heavily.

Geetha Ganesh, secretary of AGS Colony Residents Welfare Association, said the long-pending demand for a direct road connecting the residents of West Velachery to the Bypass Road has been pending for more than 35 years.

The residents’ welfare associations have given several petitions to the elected representatives for acquiring vacant lands of the Hindu Religious and Charitable Endowment Department for constructing the road but no steps have been taken. The residents are forced to take narrow roads through MGR Nagar to reach the Bypass Road.

The residents also demanded an increase in Metropolitan Transport Corporation (MTC) buses to various destinations as only one bus service — to T. Nagar — was being operated from West Velachery. The residents also demanded the operation of small bus services to access the St. Thomas Mount and the Adambakkam railway stations.

Published – March 21, 2026 12:36 am IST