CHENNAI: The National Green Tribunal (NGT) has directed the National Highways Authority of India (NHAI) to clear all construction debris the latter had dumped inside the Cooum river by September 30. NHAI has been carrying out piling work inside the Cooum river for the new four-lane elevated road from Chennai port to Maduravoyal,
The Water Resources Department (WRD), in its status report submitted before the NGT southern bench on Thursday, said it has set the deadline as September 30 to avoid flooding during the monsoon. NHAI has agreed to comply with the deadline.
Recording the submissions, the green bench instructed WRD to conduct an inspection on October 1 and submit another status report during the next hearing on October 3.
The Cooum river site near Aminjikarai was handed over to NHAI on May 31, and work was started on the approach roads and platform using construction debris for pile driving inside the Cooum river at various stretches for the elevated road project.
Debris was dumped along the river bed at 97 locations, and at present piling work is in progress at 15 locations. Additionally, debris is being dumped 100m upstream of inner ring road bridge and 300m downstream of inner ring road bridge along the river bed.
“We have sought the action plan, schedule of work and programme chart for execution of work from NHAI, and also instructed it to remove all the construction debris before September 30 to ensure free flow of water during the northeast monsoon,” said GR Radhakrishna, executive engineer, WRD.
Cooum river is an important flood water carrier for Chennai city. Within the city, it runs 18km from Koyambedu, passing through highly urbanised areas such as inner ring road, NSK Nagar, Choolaimedu, Chetpet, Egmore, and Chintadripet.
Government officials that TNIE spoke to said that in some areas NHAI had dumped the debris on the bunds without extracting it completely from the waterway. “In these cases, there is still a possibility that the debris goes back into the river and creates problems elsewhere. WRD has identified a few of these areas and has asked NHAI to remove them completely. They have agreed to do it before September 30,” an official said.
The officials also said that there was a risk of dumping debris on the bunds damaging the fencing works carried out by the corporation.