CHENNAI: Anna University will help prepare a feasibility report on setting up a Rs 160-crore truck terminal on a 66-acre marshy land opposite Sathangadu Iron and Steel Market, which acts as a natural water course for surplus water from Puzhal lake as well as nearby Burma Nagar.This comes after Public Works Department gave a conditional approval to the Chennai Metropolitan Development Authority to develop a truck terminal on the site which is termed as ‘flood bowl of North Chennai.’
One of the conditions was that the truck terminal should be an elevated one, allowing the area to continue to act as flood bowl.Sources said that Anna University will furnish a feasibility report regarding inundation problem in and around the project site with necessary hydrology and hydraulic study.
It is learnt that Centre for Water Resources in Anna University will be taking up the study at a cost of `5 lakh. Sources in Anna University said that the study would include analysis of rainfall data as well as estimation of flood inundation depth in and around the site the container truck parking yard using the hydrological modelling.
During the 2015 floods, the proposed site of 66 acres was able to hold 30.18 million cubic feet of water. The proposed site is in between Red Hills tank surplus course in downstream Tiruvottiyur-Ponneri Road to Burma Nagar Road.The proposed site starts at the chainage of 12.60 km of Red Hills surplus course and further area forms as sheet of marsh lands in which Red Hills surplus water, Kosasthaliyar river and Buckingham Canal spread during rainy season.
The PWD in its report has warned that if the area is filled with earth, then the entire stretch of water or more in worst flood scenario will be blocked and held up all along the Red Hills surplus course causing heavy flooding to areas such as Kosapur, Mathur Baba Nagar, Vadakarai, Gantylon.
As a result, it was decided to construct elevated container terminal by fixing the bottom deck slab level at a height of 4.420 metres, sources said.