For the flood reduction works, Chennai city to get Rs 4500 crores
Posted on: 27/Apr/2019 10:36:56 AM
Residents belonging to Chennai would not have forgotten the floods that devastated the city of Chennai in the year 2015. It is now said that Chennai city would receive mammoth amount of Rs 4500 crores for the development of storm water drains and large underground drains as funding from multilateral funding agencies.
The important information collected is funds would be got from the German development bank KfW and the work on the development of storm water basins in the Kovalam basins would be carried out. This Kovalam basin is present in the southern part of Chennai is well known. For the Rs 3000 crores project, World Bank is also expected to provide funds.
An official spoke about how over 70 percent of the project would be in Chennai and its suburbs. He explained about the importance of underground macro drains and said in areas that were more flood prone like Tambaram, Guduvancherry and Urapakkam etc there would be macro drains to reduce flooding. It is worth mentioning here that KfW has given in principal approval for funding estimated at Rs 2500 crores for the project covering 600 km in Kovalam basin.
The important point to be noted is 200 million Euro funds would be released from the German development bank and there would be funds from the state government also. It is known that in the Chennai Metropolitan Area is present 450 sq km out of the total of 1650 sq km of Kovalam basin.
It is now revealed that the storm water drains in the Kovalam basin would be funded by KfW and the World Bank would play its role in providing funds for the construction of huge underground drains. By these underground drains of more than 6 m width, it is possible to reduce land acquisition. It must be noted that the engineers designing flood mitigation projects have opted for number of large underground drains.
New proposals that included micro drains in urbanized areas and de-silting Pallikaranai marsh to mitigate flooding were discussed at the wrap up meeting held by the KfW and the corporation officials about the final feasibility study on the Kovalam basin.
An official explained about how de-silting of the Pallikaranai marsh by about 3 metre might reduce the flooding in places like Madipakkam etc. The official hinted that the decision on de-silting the marsh would have to be taken by the forest department. He finally spoke about how the officials were worried about the loss of biodiversity in the marsh.
