Coovum is one of the three waterways passing through the city. But a thought about the river has never – at least in the recent past – brought memories of greenery, shrubs, cool waters, birds, fish, boating or fishing expeditions to the Chennaite. Instead, his fingers would involuntarily cover his nose when he mentions the name. The name and the smell have such an inseparable association indelibly etched in his mind.

Chennai has the peculiar distinction of turning a boon into a bane. A river in a city – that too for a city that is looking up to its neighbouring states for drinking water every summer – is a resource that none can afford to spoil. Yet we have allowed that to happen. To many in the city, Coovum is not a river. It must be a part of the city’s sewer, is the popular impression.

The reality is Coovum is a village. Travel through the Poonamallee High Road through the villages of Valarpuram, Mannur, Ulundhai, Mappedu, Kondanjeri etc. You will reach the village Coovum, just before Tiruthani. It is a peaceful village where houses have country tiles for their roofs, with touring talkies, Sivan temple in the heart of the village and a Pidari Amman temple in its outskirts – so typically rustic in every sense of the word. 

The Coovum Lake situated in this village. A shimmering sheet of sparkling water, so pure and crystal clear that the entire village is using its waters for all its day to day needs. ‘We even perform the abishekam of Thiru Virkola Nathar, only with this water’ the villagers say. 

Coovum Lake is 7 miles wide and is the fourth largest lake of the State. The water from Kesavarm dam in the close by Thakkolam village where the Kosathalai River flows is the source of supply for Coovum Lake. The water from this lake is used for irrigation and whatever is in excess flows towards the city from Saththarai, a village at a distance of 1½ Kms from Coovum village.

The river is very clean and pure till it touches Poonamallee. The pollution levels keep increasing as it comes close to the city. Pollution levels cross acceptable limits when it passes Kumanan Savadi, Kandhan Savadi and Thiruverkadu. When it reaches Koyambedu, the river has already turned into a sewer. The 65-km long river is polluted as bad as a sewer, over a length of 18 Kms, from the point where it enters the city. 

The ambitious plan inaugurated in 1973 to clean up the river – even boating was planned – did not fructify. Only a few shelters on the banks of Coovum stand as silent evidence of the plan. 

Imagine. This was the river in which Pachayappa Mudaliar, founder of Pachayappas College, one of the oldest colleges in the city, used to bathe before going to his college. This was such a clean river. A few photographs of those days show that the river was used for transportation purposes. It is the dream of every Chennaite to clean the river and bring it back to its original shape. 

The Tamil Nadu Government has once again taken up a project to clean Coovum and other rivers in the State, at a cost of Rs.1700 crores, with the help of various organisations and financial institutions. An amount of Rs.58 crores will be spent on Coovum and another 193 crores on Buckingham canal, another highly polluted river. There are plans to clean the Adyar at Rs.90 cores, Captain Canal at Rs.26 crores and Otteri nullah at 87 crores. More important, there will be sufficient number of treatment plants (costing Rs.230 crores) to take care of the pollutants that mix with the rivers and spoil them.

Let the dream of every Chennaite come to fruition and let us be given an opportunity to be proud of our waterways and to enjoy an evening in ‘Coovum nadhiyin misai nilavinile’…

Raa. Sundaramoorthy

translated by Hari Krishnan