Monitoring officer reviews desilting and widening of waterbodies in Kanniyakumari

The Hindu

23-04-2025

Kanniyakumari District Monitoring Officer Hanish Chabbra conducted a meeting with the department officials on Wednesday to assess the progress of desilting and widening of waterbodies, being carried out across the district.
During the meeting Mr. Chabbra informed that Kanniyakumari district comprises a total 724 waterbodies. Among them Agasteeswaram taluk has six, Thovalai 52, Kalkulam 239, Thiruvattar 99, Vilavancode 233 and Killiyoor has 95 waterbodies. Of these 443 water bodies are managed by the Water Resource Department, 234 by town panchayats and 47 by village panchayats.
He emphasised the desilting of these waterbodies through joint efforts involving government, NGO's and farmers associations under schemes such as 'Namakku Naame.' He noted that such efforts would benefit farmers significantly and help improve the groundwater level.
Additionally, Mr Chabbra pointed out that proper maintenance of waterbodies would prevent flooding in residential areas during disasters. He instructed that all waterbodies must be cleared of debris, bushes and encroachments before the onset of monsoon. Executive Engineers of the Public Works Department have been assigned the responsibility of regularly monitoring these water bodies.
Also by doing this, water was prevented from entering residential areas during disaster times and these waterbodies should be monitored by the executive engineers of the PWD department. All the waterbodies must be cleared of debris, bushes and encroachments before the onset of monsoon.
He also directed the officials to permit farmers to take topsoil from tanks during the desilting process, as it would be useful for agricultural purposes.
District Collector R. Alagumeena, District Revenue Officer J. Balasubramanian, Padmanabhapuram Sub Collector Vinay Kumar Meena and other officials were present at the meeting.