Over the past few days, the city experienced some much-needed short bursts of high intensity rain. Roads that usually get flooded during northeast monsoon were waterlogged.
Greater Chennai Corporation Commissioner J. Radhakrishnan urged people to appreciate the speed with which water was drained from the roads. “Draining of water happens in a majority of the areas but there are still some spots which are either low lying areas or there is a difficult in diverting the water to a canal,” he said.
General Patters Road, Chamiers Road, College Road and several roads in north Chennai fall in this category but additional micro drains are being added to rectify the situation. Garbage in canals such as the Mambalam Canal slows down the flow of water, a Corporation official said.
Steps taken
About ₹20 lakh per ward had been allocated for restoration work and around 70 roads in areas such as Madipakkam and Ramapuram would be relaid in the coming weeks. The construction of micro drainages running to a length of 59.51 km was awarded in 42 packages with an allocation of ₹187.98 crore, said an official.
The desilting of storm-water drain and minor repairs to drains in all zones of the city will be taken up at an estimated cost of ₹27.55 crore in 44 packages, for which the tendering process had been started and work is set to begin in the first week of July.
