Metro water at loggerheads with Civic body over draining flood water
Finance minister O. Panneerselvam reviewed the rain relief operations in severely-affected Kalgunam village
By : DC Correspondent
Update: 2015-11-15 06:20 GMT
Chennai: The Chennai Metro Water Supply and Sewerage Board’s pumping stations are having a 24/7 workday, thanks to Chennai corporation. Corporation workers letting flood water into their sewage pipes by forcibly breaking open manhole covers could lead to another headache, which may be compounded if the city is battered by rainfall in the coming week.
“We are pumping out the majority of rainwater in our stations because corporation’s stormwater drains have not been desilted,” said a senior metro water official. “It is straining our machinery because it is not used to working more than seven or eight hours maximum in a day,” the official added.
Officials told Deccan Chronicle that the norm during monsoon for metro water was to switch off pumping stations during rainfall. “Because flood water is not sewage and both have different characteristics,” an official said.
But, the agency’s treatment plants are now releasing ‘treated’ rainwater into the city’s rivers, officials said. When asked if the metro water did not intend to help its sister agency a bit in times of emergency, officials said that was not the case. “They borrow our super suckers and other equipment to help clear stagnation. In fact, we have standby motors to help with pumping, which we have rented out at Rs 1200 a day, whether we use it or not,” said an official. However, opening manhole covers ought to be a strict no-no.
“The moment it is opened sewage mixes with rain water and because the former’s density is more, the stagnated area gets filled up by sewage,” an official said.
“Rainfall can only dilute sewage if the manholes are kept open the moment it starts raining but that is not possible. No one can anticipate just how much it would rain,” the official added. Besides, open manholes cause accidents as workers who open it leave it as such, lamented officials. But corporation officials did not agree.
“In most foreign countries, the sewage lines supplement the stormwater drain network. In a way, the rain water helps flush out the sewage too. There is nothing that can be done about this,” said a senior corporation official.
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