Corporation to get more jet rodders

A senior Corporation official said that they hope to procure these vehicles before the monsoon season, to ensure the micro canals are cleared of vegetation and storm water drains are desilted. “The jet rodding suction machines can be used in any dimension of stormwater drains and will suck out the silt. The purchase process will be through open bidding,” added the official. 

The Corporation currently maintains 7,354 stormwater drains along 1,894 kms. The desilting of drains in the city is yet to begin. “An inspection will be conducted in all zones. After identifying where the desilting needs to be done on a priority basis we will start accordingly. The machines will be deployed on areas where the requirement is the highest,” added the official.  

Residents hope that this year, with the addition of the machines, the desilting process will be faster. Ganga Sridhar, an office bearer of Raja Street Residents Welfare Association, said that when their association requested the Corporation to inspect and desilt every drain in their locality, the entire exercise took two weeks, since it was manual. “Last year, we requested S. Gopala Sundara Raj, Regional Deputy Commissioner (RDC) – South, to inspect and desilt the stormwater drains, since our area got flooded during the previous rains. We are planning to repeat the exercise this year too and hope that the process, especially if automatic, will take up lesser time,” said the software engineer by profession. 

The resident also pointed out that this time, they have identified a few stormwater drains, which have been mixed with sewerage lines. A Corporation official conceded that this is a huge problem for the civic body. “Continuous maintenance and monitoring of the drains are carried out by the respective zones,” added the official. The Corporation currently deploys super sucker machines to desilt stormwater drains carrying sewer water.