CHENNAI: The city corporation is exploring new ways to handle any floods or waterlogging issues this year by tying up with Meta to integrate complaints coming through from various channels and also by setting up flood meters which are being used in Mumbai Corporation.
Through WhatsApp, complaints from social media platforms will be integrated and forwarded to concerned zonal level officials, pump operators, etc. automatically. Senior officials will be intimated once action has been taken.
Senior corporation officials said they are finalising commercial aspects with Meta to close the deal and are also in talks with officials from other departments. As of now, during the later half of the year, the city corporation’s toll free 1913 receives over two lakh calls, while only 3% of its complaints are from ‘X’.
“There is a need to strengthen the call centre infrastructure but during floods, complaints will come in through all channels and it may not be possible to keep track of them and forward them manually to the officials concerned. Whatsapp is helping us automate these operations,” said a senior corporation official.
In addition, with help from the Asian Development Bank, the civic body is in the process of setting up 40 flood meters (they are 3-foot-long poles with sensors) that will trigger updates and warnings.
Varying flood patterns
Corporation engineers in the field have noticed that the locations that are now flooded vary from the 578 locations identified as being flood prone in the city by the Thiruppugazh committee.
“We had been using this a roadmap last year and the drain works were also taken up with these locations in mind. But now, in the rains this season, we noticed that waterlogging has been reported from a fresh set of locations and there are no drainage issues in the already-identified locations,” said a zonal level engineer.
Since last month, the city corporation has taken up street-wise mapping of flood zones to identify flood-prone areas afresh and the process is almost complete, said corporation officials.
“We have street-wise data now which we didn’t have before based on which we will plan flood mitigation measures,” said a senior official.