The Hindu 25.10.2013
Chennai is prepared for monsoon, says Mayor
Mayor Saidai Duraisamy in response to the story ‘NE Monsoon at the door, city unprepared’ in
The Hindu
on October 21, has said the Chennai Corporation began giving
recommendations in August to various government departments to cope with
the northeast monsoon.
According to a communication,
Corporation engineers and zonal officers were advised on local-level
civic interventions to deal with monsoon-related problems. The municipal
administration and law minister, K.P. Munusamy, on Monday had ordered
commencement of works by various departments to cope with challenges
pertaining to the monsoon.
The civic body has
identified 291 low lying areas in the city and commissioned 107 pump
sets to bail out water. A total of 74 pump sets have also been
commissioned in 13 subways maintained by the Corporation. Efforts have
been taken to prevent inundation of subways in the past year. Gengu
Reddy subway was the only facility to be inundated this monsoon, on
account of CMRL works and the civic body bailed out water from the
facility immediately to ease traffic congestion.
During
the previous regime, the local administration completed only 15 per
cent of the work on stormwater drains implemented under JNNURM. After
the existing local administration took charge, 4,042 works that cover 70
per cent of the project have been completed.
The
work on enumerating dilapidated buildings is underway. Work on repairing
potholes on roads is also ongoing. A total of 1,127 concrete roads and
1,249 interior roads are being redesigned according to guidelines of the
Indian Roads Congress (IRC). Another set of 8,146 roads will be
redesigned and re-laid according to IRC guidelines shortly.
The
norms of IRC were not adhered to during re-laying of roads by the
previous administration, leading to their existing condition, the
release said.
The number of cases of malaria, dengue,
chikungunya and A (H1N1) this year so far, is lower compared to the
same period in 2010, the release said. The number of malaria cases so
far this year is 3,940. The number in 2010 was 7,768.
The
number of dengue cases reported in the city this year is 96, compared
to 284 in 2010. Chikungunya too, has reduced to 10 this year compared to
356 in 2010. Only seven people have been affected by A (H1N1) this
year. The number in 2010 was 45, the release said.
