The Deccan Chronicle 20.08.2010
Project Cooum to stop city flooding
Aug. 19: The Chennai corporation has launched an ambitious project to desilt all canals and link them to the Cooum, so rainwater can go straight to the sea instead of flooding the city’s streets.
While releasing a report on climate and disaster resilience for Chennai city, which has been prepared by the city corporation, Japan’s Kyoto University and University of Madras, mayor M. Subramanian said there are several small canals in the city which overflow during floods.
“Last year, areas adjoining Virugambakkam were inundated due to water flowing out of Porur and Madhuravoyal lakes causing floods in the Virugambakkam ca-nal,” he said. “The civic bo-dy has started connecting the Virugambakkam, Madhuravoyal and Otteri canals to the Coovum river and, they have also started to link the Velachery lake with the Buckingham canal.”
The Centre and state government is to set up 2.5 lakh common service centres for flood alerts. Corporation commissioner Rajesh Lakhoni said the local body had developed software using the global information system to identify buildings prone to earthquakes and other natural disasters. “Our engineers will inspect all multi-storey buildings in the city to assess whether they can withstand natural disasters,” Mr Lakhoni said.
