Chennai: Sewer overflow and mosquito menace complaints are likely to come down in at least a thousand areas in the city in a few months. But, that would be possible only if everything goes according to Chennai Metro Water’s (CMWSSB) plan.

CMWSSB along with the city corporation has jointly undertaken a comprehensive citywide rectification project to contain sewer discharge into stormwater drains causing sewage overflow during rain.

Chennai corporation identified around 1,000 such places where individual sewerage service connections running perpendicular to stormwater drains rupture and thereby discharge sewage into the drains.

CoC has submitted a list to CMWSSB for rectification. Metro was reported to have done an assessment and set a three-month deadline to arrest sewage discharge. The idea is to end the repair ahead of the ensuing northeast monsoon that normally starts by mid October so that sewer overflow would not occur and floods would recede easily.

Most of the 1,000 vulnerable areas involve individual residential service connections. Attributing the problem to rupture in old sewer pipelines, resulting in direct discharge of sewage in to storm water drains, senior CMWSSB officials said the board would bear the cost in case of the poor households if the repair involves minor pipe replacement, which should be the case in most of the identified areas. 

However, the repair cost would be collected in the case of affordable households or if the repair involves more than just a meter of pipeline change, officials added.  The project could end Taramani-like horrors where a child slipped into an open stormwater drain and died last week.

The reason cited was worse than the tragedy itself as CoC officials said the child would not have died if there were no water, in the instant case sewage, in the stormwater drain.