To enhance flood carrying capacity, de-silting and widening the stretch of Cooum done
Posted on: 09/Mar/2019 10:37:09 AM
The latest news that has come out is to increase the flood carrying capacity, Water Resources Department or WRD, has desilted and widened 9 km stretch of Cooum River between Cherpet and Napier Bridge. Desilting, removal of vegetation and raising the bund in the stretch were carried out in the last few weeks and for this purpose as many as 12 machines were utilized.
It has been pointed out by the officials that the portion of waterway along places like College Road, Ethiraj Road etc has almost been de-silted. An official later spoke about how the height of the bund has been raised up to 3 to 4 m in this portion and how earth was removed from the water.
The superb piece of news is the waterway’s capacity to carry flood water would be enhanced to 26000 cubic feet per second when this work gets completed. The width of the river is nearly 80m to 150m and the encroachments have to be removed for only about 600m. Official finally hinted how 200 to 300 structures were present and how they must be cleared.
Nearly 50 percent of the work to widen the Cooum River and form the bund has been completed. The point is the work is taken up as a part of the Cooum River Eco- Restoration Project. This was later confirmed by the officials. In the last few weeks, the stretch between the Napier Bridge and Chetpet had some improvements and it is now said that the plugging of sewage outfalls and treatment of raw sewage entering the waterway would result in much cleaner Cooum River. As per the sources belonging to WRD, approval for setting up of modular sewage treatment plants has been issued.
One important point to be noted is the department has sought permission from the GCC to dump the debris and waste collected from the river in the dump yard present in Kodungaiyur. It is revealed that nearly 500 loads of waste like thermocol, plastic etc were estimated to be removed from places such as Pudupet and Chintadripet. It is known that in these places in Chennai the encroachments are being cleared.
