Union Environment Ministry grants final approval for Kalaignar pen monument in the Bay of Bengal

Subject : Environment

Section: Environmental laws

Context:

The Union Ministry of Environment has given Coastal Regulation Zone (CRZ) clearance for the Tamil Nadu government’s proposal to construct the MuthamizhArignar Dr. Kalaignar pen monument in Bay of Bengal, off the Marina beach in Chennai, with 15 conditions.

Details:

The CRZ clearance was provided based on the recommendations of the Expert Appraisal Committee (CRZ) and Tamil Nadu Coastal Zone Management Authority.
It has also noted that the Ministry may revoke or suspend the clearance if the implementation of the conditions were not found satisfactory.
The environment statement would have to be submitted to the Tamil Nadu Pollution Control Board every year and the compliance of conditions need to be uploaded on PWD website.

The structure:

The Pen Memorial pays tribute to M. Karunanidhi.
- The idea of a monument on water derives from the metaphorical catamaran to which Karunanidhi compared himself.
The pen monument will be 30 meters high and it would be spread over 8,551 sq.m.
This would include a pen pedestal, a lattice bridge above the beach and a land and pedestrian pathway above the sea.
The 7-metre wide bridge would be 290-metre long over the land and 360-metre long over the sea.
Chennai-based Hubert Enviro Care Systems was the infrastructure and environmental consultant for the project.
The PWD would prepare a detailed project report for executing the project based on the Ministry’s approval.
Conditions:
- No objection certificate from INS Adyar that is situated 800 metres away from the project site before the construction;
- Monitoring of erosion and accretion studies should be done;
- Reports on crowd management and emergency evacuation plans executed must be provided to the regional environment office.

Features:

The design of the monument is based on the Veena, a traditional Carnatic musical instrument that is handmade in Tamil Nadu with extreme precision.
The Thumba is used to represent the pen pedestal, the neck portion of the long bridges, the music hole a pen statue, and the peg the tensile canopy seating on the bridge.
The frets are used to represent the distance between the bridge’s columns, and the strings are used to represent the Meru or Kudira
The design for the landscaped garden on the memorial pedestal is inspired by Sikku Kolam, a traditional drawing made by Tamil women in their homes, in which a geometric shape is created using dots and circles. Locally procured granite will be used for the memorial.