Corpn., dist. administration lock horns over Op Breakthrough

Cars parked on the roadside at Vattekkunnam near Edappally that were thrown into the courtyard of a house after a portion of the road caved in following heavy rain on Wednesday.

On Wednesday, waterlogging did not occur in areas where Operation Breakthrough was implemented, and the project was a success, according to Baji Chandran, who heads Phase-II execution of the project.

In Phase-II, obstructions to the flow of water were cleared from Changadampokku, Karanakkodam, Chilavannoor and Koyithara canals, and the Thevara and Perandoor lakefronts. Only work on the Mullassery canal remains pending, he claimed.

An official who chose to defend the project said Kochi received 15.10 cm of rainfall from 1 a.m. up to 9 a.m. on Wednesday. The high tide worsened the situation, he said, adding that flooding was severe on the banks of the Thevara-Perandoor canal and the Mullassery canal, which were to be desilted by the corporation.

“The ₹19-crore Operation Breakthrough had not covered Panampilly Nagar, Ravipuram, and other severely-hit areas like parts of Thripunithura, Maradu, and Pettah. We cleaned or rebuilt drains in Phase-I, followed by canal cleaning in Phase-II to increase their carrying capacity. In this, we removed 4,000 lorry loads of silt and slush, most of which was transported to Brahmapuram,” the official added.

District Collector S. Suhas said despite continuous rain in the areas where the project was implemented, there was smooth flow of water. “There was no waterlogging in the vicinity of canals that were desilted as part of Operation Breakthrough, despite heavy rainfall. Waterlogging in the vicinity of the international stadium can be prevented if the pipe culvert laid beneath the road is substituted with a box culvert, for which a part of Banerjee Road might have to be closed down,” he added.

“The situation is bad at Chellanam and Thoppumpady. The Kochi Corporation must shed its laid-back attitude and work hand-in-hand with other departments in preventing flooding,” said Hibi Eden, MP.

Mayor Soumini Jain, however, said the fruitfulness of Operation Breakthrough was not evident in the main areas where waterlogging was experienced. Efforts would be made by the corporation in coordination with other departments to resolve the issue, particularly at Kaloor near the KSEB substation.

Thevara-Perandoor canal

An AMRUT official said a project worth ₹16.5 crore had been planned for the 10.5-km-long Thevara-Perandoor canal under the AMRUT scheme. Of this, around ₹5 crore had already been spent on fencing and cleaning the entire stretch of the canal once in 2019, and some stretches a second time this year.

Mr. Chandran, however, said obstructions to the smooth flow of water in the Thevara-Perandoor canal was what caused Wednesday’s waterlogging in Panampilly Nagar, Vaduthala and Kamattipadam areas. Since an existing AMRUT project is being implemented there, no work was taken up under Operation Breakthrough on the Thevara-Perandoor canal, he said.