For residents of TVH Park Villa, a gated community on Thoraipakkam-Pallikaranai Radial Road, the road to recovery after the floods has been tough.
It was only two months ago that the 275-flat apartment complex revamped its rainwater harvesting wells, sewage treatment plant and swimming pool by pooling in Rs.60,000 from each resident. But, the floods ravaged most of these facilities.
“Water entered the generators located at the complex, our compound wall measuring 100-ft broke, lifts stopped working and over 90 per cent of the cars got submerged in the flood waters,” says Vinod Kumar, a committee member of TVH Park Villa Flat Owners Welfare Association.
There are now plans to increase the height of the generator from the car parking level.
Many such apartment complexes are planning such preventive measures. Seabrook Apartments in Valmiki Nagar will be building more recharge wells on its premises so that surface runoffs are absorbed by these structures. In most apartments, there is pressure to convert the common area into parking space. We have not cemented the common area and have decided to build separate recharge wells for the surface runoffs to collect,” says V. Srinivasan, former secretary of Seabrook Apartments.
Eleven-storey Ceebros Boulevard at Thoraipakkam is looking at increasing the capacity of conduits on its premises.
“There are many other disaster mitigation measures we are studying with the objective of introducing them. Most apartments stock diesel for a day or two. After the prolonged power cuts during the floods, we are studying if more volume could be stocked. If so, what kind of permission is required,” says Ravi Kumar, a committee member.
Serene Acres, a 179-flat complex in Pallikaranai, is planning to pool in money from residents so that it can carry out maintenance work including increasing the height of the sump.
Experts say resident associations should take up the issue with the Corporation to make sure that the road height does not rise every year. The height of the road should be 3ft (minimum) below ground floor level of the building, say experts.
The electrical meters, transformers and pumps can be located at a higher position.
