MADURAI: With heavy rains lashing the district for the past two days, several roads in the city were inundated, posing hardship for the commuters.
According to sources, Madurai recorded a total of 66.2 mm rainfall on Tuesday with areas around Airport, Viraganur and Tallakulam receiving the highest rainfall of 60.5 mm, 57 mm and 52 mm respectively.
Minister for Co-operation Sellur K Raju criticised the State and National Highways Department for rainwater stagnation in the residential areas of the city while inspecting the works to drain the stagnant water from the roads in Vanamamalai Nagar, Duraisamy Nagar and Velusamy Nagar in ward 76 here on Tuesday.
He said that when the department renovated the roads, they elevated the roads, bring down the residential area to low lying zones and added that to tide over this problem, two wells worth `30 lakh would be sunk in the locality to drain and store the rainwater.
Commenting on a statement -- Madurai will soon become a city like Sydney -- made by Sellur K Raju in 2018 during the implementation of Smart City projects, a resident, Velraj, said that Madurai would rather look like Venice with the onset of the northeast monsoon.
Speaking to TNIE, a commuter, J Rahul, said that despite travelling in a car, he faced extreme difficulty wading through the Masi Streets where the civic body had taken up works under the Smart City Mission.
G Kamal, who works for a food delivery service, said that several main junctions, including the Periyar Junction, Veli street junctions, Masi streets and Chithirai streets were flooded with knee-level water for several hours. Residents on the south of Vaigai river also complained of sewage stagnation that posed extreme inconvenience and health threats.
However, corporation officials said that the engineering staff were deployed to attend the complaints round the clock with immediate effect. Further, the stormwater drains installed in the main junctions would also drain the stagnant water in a few minutes.
Minister Raju said that the increased intensity of rains due to climate change would pose a challenge despite the installation of stormwater drains.