Deccan Chronicle 17.09.2009

Nothing has changed city’s flooding scenario

Chennai, Sept. 16: The city dwellers are bracing themselves to negotiate waterlogged streets with the northeast monsoon expected to hit it in little over a months’ time.

Be it the elite living in lavish bungalows or the poor slum dwellers encroaching the banks of Cooum River and Buckingham Canal, Chennaites are largely vulnerable to inundation.

Poor drain facilities and encroachment of water bodies are said to be major reasons for the floods. Experts have warned that another season of floods is in the offing for the metropolis.

As usual, residents of Velachery, Choolaimedu, Nanganallur, Arumbakkam and Palavanthangal in South Chennai besides Pulianthopu, Vyasarpadi, Perambur, Kolathur in north Chennai would have to face the greatest difficulties.

On the one side, the land mafia and poor people are encroaching upon canals and lakes, while the government, on its part, had converted few water bodies into housing sites, said experts of the state water resource department.

Authorities also conduct ‘mock’ eviction drives every now and then following court intervention and drive away the poor, while the well-off largely escape untouched, they observed.

A report on water conservation prepared by WRD experts had revealed that even an hour’s rain or 100 mm rainfall could flood the city.

At present, the city corporation is engaged in de-silting water channels and cleaning up of storm water drains. But flooding would become a thing of the past only if the encroachments are removed. This is easier said than done.