The Deccan Chronicle 17.08.2010
State project blocks surge in city groundwater levelAug. 16: Don’t be surprised if the water level in the deep borewells and open wells in your backyard do not get recharged like in the past in Chennai hereafter.
The state PWD (public works department) is laying a concrete bed for the arterial Virugambakkam canal that cuts through the city and drains floodwater into Cooum river, unmindful that this would nullify water percolation and replenishment of groundwater.
The work, being done as a component of the Rs 1,447 crore comprehensive flood mitigation project, has exposed the state government’s double stand. While spending hundreds of crores on artificial groundwater recharge, the same government is also diminishing groundwater resources. A PWD official involved in laying the concrete bed told DC that the concrete would ensure smooth and fast flow of water but prevent percolation of sewage into the ground, tacitly admitting that Virugambakkam canal was not a flood but only a sewage carrier.
Laying concrete on the canal bed would make the Madras metropolitan area groundwater (management) amendment Act 2002 meaningless, a senior PWD official observed. He added that the construction of such a concrete canal to ensure fast flow of water in the delta districts would be justified, but would not serve the purpose in water-starved Chennai city where the water would flow uselessly into the sea.
Instead of letting rainwater into the sea, the government could identify flood sources upstream of the canals and enhance adequate storage capacity or, if required, de-velop new storage facilities, experts of the state water re-source organisation told this paper, questioning the logic behind developing desalination plants when plentiful rainwater is uselessly let into the sea for want of storage facilities.
The Virugambakkam canal was testimony to lack of lo-ng-term and scientific perspective while designing cr-ucial projects like water re-charge and flood mitigation, PWD experts, preferring an-onymity, quipped. They predict more floods in Chennai after laying the concrete bed for all flood carriers in the city. Most open spaces are already being converted into concrete surfaces, particula-rly high-rise residential co-mplexes. Sadly, the government has also joined the race in diminishing the ci-ty’s groundwater resources by increasing concrete cover, the experts rued.
