The Water Resources Department (WRD) has started the process for signing an agreement with the World Bank for funding the first phase of comprehensive flood mitigation projects for city and suburban areas.
On Friday, the project, under the Chennai City Partnership Programme, was featured as one of the announcements made in the State Budget tabled at the Assembly on Friday. Finance Minister Palanivel Thiagarajan said the programme would be launched soon with financial assistance from the World Bank and the Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank.
The government has redesigned some elements in the project after detailed discussions with the World Bank. It would focus on various aspects, including water security and resilience of Chennai, enhancing urban mobility and revitalising the Chennai Urban Metropolitan Transport Authority, he said.
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Sources in the WRD said 13 major projects had been proposed under the programme for results component to make the city resilient to flood and drought and create new storage capacity for the city's water supply.
Once the projects are implemented, an additional water storage potential for nearly 3.3 tmc ft, would be created initially and this could be tapped to boost Chennai’s growing water needs. Besides helping alleviate the problem of flooding and benefitting 11 lakh people, the projects would aid in irrigation development.
Moreover, groundwater recharge of nearly 3.7 tmc ft could be achieved.
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Some of the projects include restoration of Sriperumbudur tank with better storage capacity to reduce flood run off and supply 200 million litres a day (mld) to city and rejuvenation of Pillaipakkam tank to support transfer of Palar water to Chembarambakkam reservoir and provide 550 mld of water to the city.
The department has proposed nearly 132 projects to be executed over the next few years that would create a new water storage potential of 11 tmc ft to supply to the city and its suburbs.