CHENNAI: Municipal Administration Minister KN Nehru, on Monday, condemned former CM Edappadi K Palaniswami for allegedly belittling the flood mitigation measures being carried out by the government.
He said a review meeting was held by Chief Minister MK Stalin at the secretariat on September 30, due to which, the flooding in Coimbatore, Tiruppur, Pudukkottai, Salem and Madurai was controlled without much damage, despite heavy rains. Similarly, Stalin has now conducted a review of preparedness measures taken for Chennai and surrounding districts.
“If a review meeting was not conducted, Palaniswami will question us as to why it was not done,” he said. Nehru also questioned whether any review meeting was held at all, ahead of the 2015 floods.
Earlier in the day, Nehru inspected areas including Tondiarpet, Thiru Vi Ka Nagar and other parts of the city to monitor flood mitigation measures.
“Based on previous experiences, additional pumps, saws, 169 relief centres with decentralised kitchens and all basic facilities have been kept ready,” an official release said.
Corporation officials and designated monitoring officers are expected to work 24 hours to tackle the situation. The corporation’s toll-free number 1913 received 1450 calls in a single day on Sunday and all of them have been resolved, the release said. The corporation also said some places are expected to receive extremely heavy rain of around 40 cms on October 16 and 17.
In a separate statement, metro water said that 597 sewage disposal vehicles have already been deployed and an additional 90 vehicles have been procured from other districts for the upcoming rains.