The Hindu : Tamil Nadu / Chennai News : Long-term solutions to flooding

Online edition of India's National Newspaper
Thursday, Dec 15, 2005

Tamil Nadu

Tamil Nadu - Chennai

Long-term solutions to flooding

Karthik Subramanian

Corporation proposes widening, desilting of rivers and canals The new projects are part of a Rs. 229 crore plan forwarded to the Centre

CHENNAI: The Chennai Corporation has proposed comprehensive improvements to the city's waterways to prevent flooding of the city in future. This includes widening and desilting of the two rivers and major canals, apart from creating additional drainage points for storm water.

In its report submitted to the Commissioner (Revenue Administration) and forwarded to the Central Government, the civic agency identified Buckingham Canal as a water body stressed beyond its capacity.

The canal was formed as a navigation channel in 1834 and even served as an inland waterway till 1954. It serves now as a draining channel for water from the Araniar, the Kosasthaliyar, the Cooum and the Adyar rivers before draining into the sea. It also collects storm flood from various storm water drain systems in west Chennai, including Kodungaiyur drain, Otteri Nallah, Captain Cotton canal.

A senior official said Buckingham Canal could be widened wherever possible to accommodate increased flow of water. "The canal comprises three reaches — North Canal running to 17 km, Central Canal to 7.1 km and the South Canal to 24 km. The North and South reaches can be enlarged by an additional width of 20 to 50 metres. To prevent encroachments on the canal, the banks have to be raised by concrete walls."

The improvements to the Buckingham Canal alone are estimated at Rs.180 crore.

To further reduce the load on Buckingham Canal, Corporation officials have suggested that the Otteri Nallah that drains into the canal could be diverted to the Cooum River by making underground drainage facilities across the city. This would cost Rs. 8 crore. One of the main reasons for flooding in North Chennai has been the sole dependency on Buckingham Canal. The official said water would not stagnate in North Chennai if Otteri Nallah and the Cooum River could be connected.

The proposals include streamlining of the Cooum River flow from Korattur Anaicut in Thiruvallur district to Periyar bridge at Anna Salai to a length of 29 km. The works have been estimated at Rs. 35 crore.

Apart from this, the Corporation has estimated that it would take Rs. 6 crore to continue improvement works at the Adyar River mouth at the Bay of Bengal.

The entire project for enlarging, streamlining and draining the water sources for Chennai has been estimated at Rs. 229 crore.

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