Various government agencies, including the police and fire personnel, have been put on alert to tackle any emergency that may arise during the northeast monsoon.
“The State control room, 1077, will function 24x7 and residents can call to make any rain-related complaint. It will be forwarded to the heads of the departments concerned. Individuals departments will have their own helpline,” said Revenue Minister R.B. Udhayakumar.
Residents can complain of water stagnation and tree fall to the Chennai Corporation’s helpline 1913, 044-25367823, 044-25384965, 044-25383694 and 044-25619206.
V.S. Jayaraman, a resident of T. Nagar, complained that the Corporation helpline 1913 remained busy for most part of the evening.
“My area had water-logging. So I wanted to complain about it. However, I could not reach the number,” he said.
Meanwhile, Tiruvallur Collector E. Sundaravalli also has announced helplines 044 -27664177 and 044- 27666746 for residents to register complaints.
Special teams formed
The Public Works Department, the District Rural Development Agency, and the Revenue authorities in Kancheepuram have been instructed to ensure the safety of waterbodies coming under their control.
Disclosing this while briefing the media about the measures put in place by the district administration, Collector P. Ponnaiah said based on the inundation and other problems encountered during the 2015 floods, a total of 515 places in the district have been identified as vulnerable and they have been divided into 48 zones for better management of rescue efforts during any crisis.
In addition to this, the PWD, DRDA and Revenue officials have been directed to form special teams to keep vigil, particularly during night hours, over waterbodies coming under their control to avert any man-made breaching of bunds.
Further, residents of housing areas that have come up very close to the waterbodies have also been instructed to be prepared for evacuation in case the waterbody overflows or gets filled to the brim, he added.
As regards coastal areas, 18 cyclone shelters are kept ready to accommodate residents of coast colonies and three alternative sites have been identified for as many cyclone shelters that need extensive renovation work.
A flood control room with a toll-free number 1077 has been set up in addition to the existing District Disaster Management Centre numbers – (044) 27237107 / 207 and Whatsapp numbers 9445051077 and 9445071077 for the affected people to make SoS calls or pass on information about the flood situation in the district, the Collector said.
