The Hindu 01.12.2014
Corpn. cleans Sanganoor Canal in stretches
Sanganoor Canal in Coimbatore being desilted on Saturday.— Photo: K. Ananthan
The Coimbatore Corporation has begun cleaning the Sanganoor Canal in stretches. The Canal runs for over 10 km within the city.
According to sources, the work has begun in Ward 10 in West Zone near the Mettupalayam Road – Sanganoor Road junction.
The work was for one-and-a-half km at Rs. 10 lakh. From the junction, the Corporation would clean the Canal till Periyar Nagar.
The reason for choosing the stretch was that it was full of bushes and that had obstructed the flow of water.
In
Ganapathy in North Zone, the Corporation had decided to spend Rs. 19
lakh to clean the stretch from Maniakarampalayam to Ganapathy in two
phases. At present, it was cleaning the Kattabomman Street stretch of
the Canal.
The sources said that stretch to be cleaned measured around five km and covered Wards 40, 41, 46 and 47 in North Zone.
Likewise, the Corporation had planned to clean the Canal stretch near Sivananda Colony.
This area fell under the Central Zone, where the officials had prepared estimate for around Rs. 25 lakh.
They
said that the Corporation wanted to clean the Canal with its funds
without awaiting the State Government clearance for the funds and that
was the reason that it had split the cleaning work in zonal packages for
local financial approval.
If the project were to be
taken as one package, the cost would surpass Rs. 1 crore, which was
beyond the Corporation Council’s power to sanction projects.
Mayor P. Rajkumar said that the Corporation had taken up the project that was a long pending demand of people.
The Canal cleaning work would help easy drainage of flood waters.
But sources said that the civic body was executing the project at a time when the North East Monsoon was declining.
Ideally,
it should have cleaned the Canal prior to the South West Monsoon as it
would have helped in discharging rainwater and prevented inundation of
low-level areas.
The State Government had recently approved of the Corporation’s proposal to lay a road on the Canal’s bank.