During heavy rains, the first infrastructure to go under water is usually the subways in the city. The immediate effect of the flooding of subways linking important arterial roads would be huge traffic jams. The flooding of the railway under bridges (RUB) cuts off access for the motorists, forcing them to take a detour via other arterial roads.
The Chennai Corporation maintains a total of 16 subways in the city, which are mostly located in important areas like Saidapet, T. Nagar, Egmore, Perambur, and Royapuram.
With most of the RUBs vulnerable to flooding during rainy season, the civic body this year has taken steps to desilt the storm water drain network linked to these subways and have cleaned up the collection wells located near subways to prevent stagnation of water.
A senior official of the Chennai Corporation said that of the 16 subways, RUBs in 11 places were identified as prone to flooding whenever there was heavy rain.
The civic body has desilted 11 subways including Ganesapuram, Gengu Reddy, Perambur, Villivakkam, Reserve Bank, Aranganathan and Madley Road. The cost of desilting these 11 subways was Rs. 40.70 lakh, the official added.
The official said the work on cleaning the storm water drain network along with the collection wells located near the subways have been completed well ahead of the monsoon.
Also, the heavy duty pumps installed in the collection wells have been serviced and additional pumps kept ready to face the North East monsoon.
