CHENNAI: With an early Northeast Monsoon in sight this year, age-old problems have come back to haunt residents of Kovilambakkam. Without a storm water drain, sewage and rain water from one side of the 200-feet radial road flows onto the other side, leaving the area there waterlogged.
Having nowhere to go, sewage and rain water from Vinayagapuram side of the radial road is left to accumulate along the road side. When there is a heavy rain, officials allow water to pass through the culvert along the radial road to the opposite side which is usually already flooded, claim residents.
“Ours is an already low-lying area. Now the rain has just begun and water is already stagnating around our side. It stays waterlogged for months,” said Kartheeswaran Ganesan of Kagithapuram, Kovilambakkam.
Houses at Kagithapuram and Ambedkar Salai are the worst affected due to the diversion. On Saturday, night, residents coerced the panchayat officials to temporarily block the culvert with debris, keeping the rest of the water at bay. The issue, they said, has persisted for around eight years now.
When Express visited the spot, water was stagnant in a vacant piece of land along the radial road. Around 10 months back, work commenced for the construction of storm water drain, but was abandoned soon after, said residents. “There is a small part of a storm water drain constructed near Eachangadu bus stop, but work never progressed after that,’ said Sankar, another resident.
While a panchayat official said it is left to the highways to come up with a long term solution, a highways official said a storm water drain has been proposed for the stretch and work will commence soon.
“The residents are also keen on increasing the size of the storm water drain from what was initially proposed by us. So, we have to factor in that too before work begins,” the official said.