Pulicat Lake in peril, again Premium
The Hindu
Pulicat Lake, facing industrial expansion threat, supports rich biodiversity and livelihoods, sparking conservation concerns.
The Pulicat Lake, the second largest brackish water lagoon in India after Chilika, sprawling across Andhra Pradesh and Tamil Nadu, is in the spotlight again. Not for its historical, ecological, or economical significance, but for an imminent threat from industrial expansion as the Tamil Nadu government has begun the process of denotifying parts of the Pulicat bird sanctuary.
Encompassing 720 square kilometres, most of the lake falls in Andhra Pradesh and less than 20% in Tiruvallur district of Tamil Nadu. About 60 kilometres north of Chennai, the lagoon is separated from the Bay of Bengal by the Sriharikota island. It is a unique ecotone that supports rich biodiversity — from aquatic life such as mudskippers, seagrass beds, and oyster reefs to more than 200 avian species, including migratory birds such as Eurasian curlews, oystercatchers, bar-tailed godwits, sand plovers, and greater flamingos.
In 1980, the bird sanctuary was notified under Section 18 of the Wild Life (Protection) Act, 1972, (declaring an “intention” to make any area, other than an area comprising reserve forests or the territorial waters, into a sanctuary), encompassing 13 revenue villages surrounding the lake. However, a final notification specifying the limits of the area within the sanctuary must be declared under Section 26A.
In early March 2024, the process of settling claims of the locals was initiated by Tiruvallur Collector T. Prabhushankar for the 13 villages — Pulicat, Kanvanthurai, Pakkam, Avurivakkam, Sirulapakkam, Annamalaicheri, Kallur-Sirumurkuppam, Keerapakkam, Mangodu, Poongulam, Opasathiram, Sunnambukulam, and Medipalayam.
According to Chief Wildlife Warden Srinivas Reddy, the 10-kilometre default eco-sensitive zone (ESZ) will be inapplicable once the sanctuary is notified. Environmentalists fear that the move will facilitate industrial expansion, exacerbating the harm to the delicate wetland ecosystem on which the livelihood of thousands of fisherfolk depends.
Incidentally, months before the claim settlement started, a proposal for the use of 215.8 hectares of land for the development of an industrial park five kilometres from the sanctuary, inside its default ESZ, was made before the National Board for Wildlife (NBWL). Expansion of two steel plants and construction of a new factory for production of chemical compounds for detergents — all within 10 kilometres from the sanctuary — have also been proposed.
These units have been classified as the ‘red’ industries by the Tamil Nadu Pollution Control Board. It is also pertinent to note that the draft comprehensive environment impact assessment submitted for the Adani Kattupalli Port — for which the public hearing was stalled in August 2023 following public outcry — shows that the lake is located 7.2 kilometres from the project site and the present bird sanctuary boundary is a mere 3.17 kilometres away.