Greater Chennai Corporation Commissioner J. Radhakrishnan has asked the civic agency and all line departments to follow the City Disaster Management Plan 2023 to improve coordination and ensure uninterrupted civic services during the monsoon.
Drawing attention to the issues during the upcoming northeast monsoon season, Dr. Radhakrishnan has issued directions that the service departments, which have taken up civic works display the details of the work prominently with timelines and its benefits, safely barricade the areas, address the post-rain slush and potholes in the residual carriage way, apart from ensuring that the GCC and the line departments finish such essential works in a time-bound manner.
“All actions of the GCC during the monsoon should be in consonance with the City Disaster Management Plan, keeping an effective liaison with all the monitoring officers, elected representatives at all levels and residents welfare associations,” he said.
“So far, approximately 3,331 km of storm water drains have been provided for the city, including 876.19 km of drains additionally constructed during the last two-and-a-half years in addition to the existing 2,455 km of storm water drains. Here the focus of the GCC should be to complete the missing links in the storm water drain works taken up and also ensure that the roads surrounding it are not left slushy. Focus should thus be on the remaining 3,000 metres in about 30 locations, including those in the arterial roads maintained by the Highways department and those under construction by the Corporation. Apart from putting up barricades during the pendency of work, the area should be cleared of excess earth and roads restored as per the standards, once work is over,” said Dr. Radhakrishnan.
“Many of the essential works being undertaken by service departments require road cuts and issues of slushy roads were reported in localities where such works were ongoing during the recent rains. To address this challenge, the Greater Chennai Corporation and the line departments embarked on a ward and zone level regular coordination with the concerned departments. The GCC followed up the issues with all connected departments and was able to expedite getting back the roads, subjected to such essential road cuts for restoration. In such roads, permanent restoration and relaying have been taken up on a war-footing and to a large extent this has helped in systematically addressing and resolving the issues. It should be the responsibility of all the connected departments and the Greater Chennai Corporation to reduce the inevitable disruption of other services as much as possible,” said Dr.Radhakrishnan.
“We should keep checking the drains and ensure that they are de-silted and capable of taking the inflows. De-silting, wherever not completed or done incompletely, should be taken up and that would be the key to prevent inundation and improve water flow. So far, out of works taken up along 1,501 km, 1,447 km have been completed and works are under way in 53 km. These may be completed on a war-footing,” he said.
Various measures have been taken up in Chennai city to manage floods, including drone survey of about 5,820 square kilometers of Chennai basin, Real Time Data Acquisition System (RTDAS) with Automatic Rain Gauges, Automatic Weather Stations, Automatic Water Level Recorders and Shutter Sensors. Real Time Flood Forecasting and Early Warning System linked with Integrated Command and Control Centre and SCADA based reservoir operations have also been undertaken, he said.
Published - October 27, 2023 09:24 pm IST
