Stormwater drains not ready for rain

Officials told DC that they have awarded work to contractors only for 10 of the 39 proposed packages for constructing storm water drains across various locations in the extended areas.

“Thirty-five of 39 packages were tendered out. We have awarded contracts on 10 packages and the remaining 25 are in various stages of processing, which will be completed soon,”

said an official.

No matter how soon the civic body will execute the work, it is likely to be late as the city is expecting monsoon to start by the third week of October. Work on many of these stormwater drains has not even begun.

In many of these locations, the surveying process alone could take as many as 45 days. “Apart from the usual intervention where underground cables are identified and shifted, the surveying process when the height, size and width of the drains are to be determined alone could take 45 days. By the time, the monsoon would be over,” remarked an official.

K.R. Dinesh, a resident of Velachery, described the development as expected.

“Everyone knows how Velachery can get flooded even if it rains a little. It is but official apathy, and nothing else, that the corporation has not thought it fit to start work on the stormwater drain project,” he said.

However, officials claimed that they have ensured that the core city limits would not greatly suffer from the consequences of a heavy downpour. “Since we hired four super sucker-jet rodding machines, we have managed to remove about 3,500 tonnes of silt from stormwater drains,” said an official.

The corporation has also identified 588 roads considered to be flood prone, based on data collected during last year’s monsoon. “Of these 588 roads, we have re-laid the road, corrected the camber value, built silt catch pits, created inlets and removed silt from the storm water drains in around 376 of them. What this ensures is that flood water will run off into the drain within an hour without stagnating,” said an official.