Important info regarding the work on Medavakkam-Sholinganallur Road in Chennai!!
Posted on: 19/Jul/2022 9:52:56 AM
For the continuous flow of excess water from Pallikaranai marsh onto the Buckingham canal, the State Highways department would be widening a narrow bridge on the - Sholinganallur road near Classical Tamil Institute. This would ease flooding in localities such as Sholinganallur, Perumbakkam and in Chemmenchery etc.
It is learnt that the State Highways Department has invited a tender to construct the bridge with 6lane divided carriageway at a cost of Rs 12.36 crores. This would replace the existing bridge of 3spans of 3metres.
Based on the High Court of Madras order, a reassessment study was conducted by the executive engineer belonging to the State Highways Department. The objective of the study was to focus on the effectiveness in conveying the flood water from the southern part of Pallikaranai swamp through the bridges in the Medavakkam- Sholinganallur road and through the macro drain, Pallikaranai swamp channel and Okkiyam Madavu after the establishment of Elcot-IT-SEZ.
Inadequate liner waterway in the bridges of Medavakkam- Sholinganallur Road has led to drainage congestion here. The study revealed that physical occupation of new structures such as IT-SEZ, Classical Tamil institute etc resulted in the reduced flood buffering. Non standard geometric sections coupled with poor interconnectivity of micro drain was responsible for drainage connection.
According to an official belonging to the department, Medavakkam- Sholinganallur Road was an important link road. There is a necessity to reconstruct the bridge for the present as well as for the future traffic requirements. He added that up-stream side flooding of Sholinganallur, Perumbakkam and Semmenchery etc would be due to hindrance.
It is known that the chief minister of TN Mr. M.K. Stalin has already announced that Rs 1000 crores would be spent on the flood mitigation works in Chennai. Point is that the high level bridge work is undertaken as a part of this announcement from the chief minister.
