Throwing open floodgates of anger

During the rare summer showers of May, rain over two days seemed enough to flood some localities and bring back bad memories of the December floods for residents and leave them with questions about how the authorities propose to tackle the issue.

For instance, residents of Bollineni Hill Side Park, a gated community in Perumbakkam, are under constant threat of their flats being flooded. After the heavy rains last month, 70 per cent of the families had to move out of the gated community.

The owners of the flats and villas in the posh residential complex, who spent huge amounts for their houses, now feel cheated.

Members of the local association said that after living in the private integrated township for five years during which time flooding happened annually, the residents of the Bollineni Hillside are considering agitating against the builder.

Anand Sankara Subramaniam, a villa owner in the residential complex, said the builder had failed to take the basic step of levelling the ground and had also not provided a stormwater drainage system within the complex.

This had resulted in rainwater stagnating.

Residents agitated

The residents in the township are agitated over the fact that the builder has not provided any of the amenities that were promised, including sewage treatment plants, drinking water plant, rainwater harvesting system and to top it all, has not handed over the maintenance to the owners’ association.

Satish, a member of the association, said with the huge corpus fund yet to be handed over to the owners’ association, they were unable to undertake any maintenance work. Similarly, another big apartment complex in Thoraipakkam situated adjacent to the Pallikaranai Marshland is facing problems of flooding.

The location of these residential complexes on a flood terrain, the lack of stormwater drains and the poor design of buildings are reasons for flooding, pointed out residents.

M.N. Prakash, who owns an apartment in the multi-storeyed complex in Vinayaka Nagar, Thoraipakkam, said many residents vacated their homes during the recent spell of rain in May.

We have approached officials to connect a portion of a drain in our neighbourhood to the Pallikaranai Marshland. Residents have also engaged labourers to create an artificial passage for the stormwater.”

( with inputs from R.Srikanth )