Sewage released on the sly into Madhavaram water

CHENNAI: Severe health problems due to ground water contamination are threatening about 70,000 families residing at Mathur, Manali and Madhavaram localities in the city's northwestern suburbs. The Madhavaram Municipality has been clandestinely letting out its untreated sewage into a lake that is the only groundwater source for these areas.
According to residents from Mathur Village Panchayat in Puzhal Union, the municipality has disregarded their repeated requests to reroute its sewage to the Chennai Metrowatermaintained treatment plant at Kodungaiyur and save the groundwater source meant for thousands of families in the locality. The 134acre MadhavaramMathur Lake, which remained full perennially and is a source of groundwater for families in the locality, has dried up over the last one year.Under the pretext of draining rainwater into the lake through stormwater drains, the local body, about a year ago, built a concretecanal up to the mouth of the lake and let the sewage and polluted the groundwater, C M Ram­esh, a resident of Mathur told Express.