Chennai losing open space as TN fails to notify it under Act

C Shivakumar @ Chennai:

Chennai's green cover has come down drastically with the rise in concrete jungle and it has lost more than one-fifth of the greenery in the last 20 years, according to various studies.

According to a Comptroller and Auditor General Report released recently, the concrete jungle rose from 90.88 sqkm in 1979 to 541.14sqkm in 2016 as Chennai Metropolitan Development Authority (CMDA) allowed blatant land use conversions resulting in shrinkage of water bodies and reduction in lung space due to vanishing greenery and open space.

K P Subramanian, former urban engineering professor with College of Engineering blamed the failure on the part of the government to notify open spaces under The Tamil Nadu Parks, Play-Fields and Open Spaces (Preservation and Regulation) Act, 1959.  “All the open spaces have to be notified under the act which will even make it difficult to convert the open space for other purposes,” said the professor.

He also said that the land use zoning regulation should have been strictly enforced under the Second Master Plan to have more open space.

Interestingly, the area under water bodies and vegetation came down from 100.98 sqkm to 91.31sqkm and 548.53 to 442.43sqkm respectively highlighting that CMDA planners were not prepared for such a growth of Chennai.

While the First Master Plan and Second Master Plan projected a total increase in built-up area by 330.58sqkm (33,058 hectare) over the 50 year period between 1976 to 2026, the actual increase in built up area as worked out using satellite imageries over 37 years period between 1979 and 2016 was 450.26 sqkm pointing to large-scale illegal constructions.

Association of Professional Town Planners (APTP) president K M Sadanand stressed on the need to use open spaces for Children’s playground and developing it for greenery related activities. He also highlighted that OSR encroached upon should be restored and all Open Space are should be uploaded online.

Similarly, a report published in Journal of Indian Society of Remote sensing by Dr TV Ramachandra and Dr Bharath H Aithal from the Centre for Ecological Sciences at Indian Institute of Science has stated The area under vegetation declined from 70 % to 48 % with urbanization increasing from 1.46 % to about 18.5 %.

Interestingly, K P Subramanian says that with the expansion of Chennai Metropolitan Area, there will be more unbuilt space and the Master Plan should ensure that unbuilt open space is conserved.