CMDA to prohibit construction of high rises without proper drainage plan

The Chennai Metropolitan Development Authority (CMDA) has decided not to allow any multi-storied building to come up in the city without a proper drainage plan. For the very first time, the CMDA has directed builders to submit a building plan with detailed blueprints on how they plan to flush out the excess water from their compound to a common public drain channel connected to the nearby river. The builder will have to ensure that there is a well-planned drainage network within the perimeter of the building and not just a drain outlet that flushes the water to the public area outside the compound. 

“We need to ensure a  proper flow of excess water from each area to the nearest river. There should be no bottlenecks on the river’s flow to the sea. We are working on providing better drainage networks in common areas and now it is the responsibility of each builder to ensure that their drainage system is well connected to the common drainage network,” Dharmendra Prathap Yadav, vice chairman in charge of CMDA told DT Next. 

He said, hereafter, CMDA will not approve any building plan lacking a proper drainage network in place. “We had not insisted on this measure while approving the plans till the floods happened. This decision has been taken as part of our efforts to avoid flood situations in the city,” he added. 

However, the CMDA still has no plans to ramp up drainage infrastructure for existing buildings. A majority of the constructions now release excess rain water to the common areas around their compound. The rain water harvesting systems installed in many of these buildings do not have the capacity to absorb large quantities of water during heavy raining days, CMDA sources said. 

Meanwhile, Yadav maintained that illegal constructions were never the reason for the floods in Chennai. “CMDA does not approve any plan that does not have a proper title. We ensure that the property on which a building is proposed to be constructed has a valid title and that it do not fall under the ‘no-construction’ zones. I still do not believe that we could have prevented the floods,” he adds.