Residents of P&T Colony perched precariously alongside the Perandoor Canal had the worst time during this monsoon.
Taking a serious note of their plight, the district administration has directed to complete the cleaning of the canal on a war footing. The decision was taken at a meeting chaired by District Collector K. Mohammed Y. Safirulla here on Friday following a High Court order directing the Collector to clean up the canal of water hyacinth and waste on a war footing to avoid waterlogging in the city.
To begin with, the stretch of the canal between the GCDA market and P&T Colony, and Kammattippadam will be cleaned up by the end of this month. The removal of water hyacinth launched on June 26 had got interrupted midway through.
Out of the 10.50-kilometre-long canal, cleaning along the 3.70-kilometre stretch using a floating excavator is under way at an estimated cost of ₹5.85 lakh.
Waterlogging is at the worst on the stretch between South railway station and Gandhi Nagar. The area along Kammattippadam will be cleaned using 100-odd workers.
The Collector has directed time-bound completion of the work using two excavators. The Corporation Secretary said that a net would be placed to prevent the re-entry of hyacinth into the cleaned area.
Corporation authorities told the meeting that the drive to clean the entire stretch between Thevara and Perandoor under the Atal Mission for Rejuvenation and Urban Transformation (Amrut) Scheme would be launched next month.
The cleaning is expected to be fully complete by next April and is likely to cost around ₹16 crore.
