New project by Greater Chennai Corporation: 50 Sponge Parks to be set up in the city to store rainwater!
Posted on: 13/Jul/2022 11:59:58 AM
Greater Chennai Corporation (GCC) has come up with a plan to transform 50 parks in the Chennai Metro City into `Sponge Parks` which will facilitate storing the rainwater run-off. Further, GCC has plans to set up additional parks in the Chennai Metro City.
As per the information from the senior GCC officials, the zonal officials have been asked to identify the parks which can be converted to `Sponge Parks` so that each zone has at least 2 Sponge Parks!
These parks will have harvesting structures to store run-off during rains. They also will have a percolation system to naturally filter water before it goes into the ground.
A GCC official shared, "We are coordinating with zonal officials and architects to finalise the design and prepare estimates."
In this regard, sponge parks are already being used as a part of flood defences in other parts of the world, including in Manchester, England. The idea is for these parks to act as a sponge in flood-prone areas - to slow down the release of run-off into neighbouring storm water drains and limit the run-off gradually, while also facilitating percolation.
Further, Greater Chennai Corporation is set to build 100 new parks and 50 playfields alongside these sponge parks.
As part of `Singara Chennai 2.0`, zonal officials will identify OSR land that can be developed and turned into parks. The project is to be taken up at an estimated cost of Rs 50 crore.
A GCC official further shared, "The OSR land details are still coming in from zones. Once this is done, we will finalise which spots can be developed into parks or playfields, depending on the local need. This is part of the corporation`s effort to reclaim and develop OSR land and maintain a centralised record of its availability."
GCC Officials further shared that the distribution of these new parks will be based on the local availability of Open Space Recreation (OSR) land. In some zones, like Royapuram and Teynampet, the availability of OSR land is limited, while in others, multiple spaces can be transformed.
Greater Chennai Corporation has recently proposed to make OSR land details available on its website.
