This was one of the recommendations in their report titled ‘Citizen’s Charter for Pallikaranai Watershed’, compiled by the Chennai Wetlands Action Collective (CWAC) and Oorvani Foundation, with the Federation of OMR Residents Associations (FOMRRA), which was released on Wednesday.
The proposed committee should comprise subject-matter experts and people’s representatives and study the gaps identified in the charter and provide scientifically informed recommendations to the State on integrated water management across the marshland and define the roles, responsibilities, and timelines of the concerned departments, the report said.
The report notes that the Tamil Nadu Water Policy, drafted in 1994, “hasn’t been updated since”, while a State Water Policy drafted in 2024 “has also not been notified”.
It says the State has not enacted a Flood Plain Zoning Act even after five decades, despite a Union government template issued in 1975. The charter also claimed that the Thiruppugazh Committee’s final report, submitted in May 2023 after studying 1,189 square kilometres and 30 years of flood data, is not in the public domain.
The Wetland Rules “exist mostly on paper and are not implemented properly on the ground” and notes that even the Pallikaranai Marshland has not been notified under the rules. The charter further states that 92,068 tanks and 127 reservoirs were recorded in the Tamil Nadu Water Resources Information and Management System, but “none of that data is yet in the public domain.”
Among the other demands were demarcation, mapping, protection, and notification of wetlands and their floodplains under the Wetland (Conservation and Management) Rules, 2017, and enactment of the Flood Plain Zoning Act in Tamil Nadu.
The Collective sought regular desilting and maintenance of canals, prevention of sewage entering canals and water bodies, source segregation of household waste, and removal of encroachments and illegal infrastructure inside the protected Pallikaranai Ramsar site and its buffer zone in the region.