Chennai: Situation no different in CM’s Kolathur constituency either

Though flooding of streets has been a perennial problem in the low-lying areas of Kolathur, the residents complain that rainwater nowadays stagnates unless pumped out by the Greater Chennai Corporation.

Fathima Gani, a resident of Umamaheshwar Nagar at Kolathur said all the houses in her locality were flooded following Sunday’s overnight rain. “Since then, we have been staying in the flooded house with children hoping the water would recede. We have complained to all the helpline numbers but no officials came to pump out the rainwater,” she said.

Muninathan, another resident of the locality said over 3,000 families living in Umamaheshwar Nagar, Anusuya Nagar, Siva Sakthi Nagar, Neelamegam Street, and Ambedkar Nagar were affected by the flood. “We always face water stagnation during the monsoon but for the past two to three years rainwater refuses to drain even days after rain,” he said.

In places like Senthil Nagar and Srinivasa Nagar, the streets and main road continued to remain inundated but the water level has come down. “At Poompuhar Nagar, the flood water has drained. The corporation workers are draining the rainwater using pump sets at Periyar Nagar,” said Gopalan, a resident.

Residents of Vivekananda Nagar Main Road at Lakshmipuram on the west side of the Kolathur complain that the flood level on the road, which provides connectivity to Teachers Colony and Lakshmipuram, has not come down. “The corporation constructed stormwater drains on both sides of the road but it did not help,” said Tamilselvan, a resident of Sarathy Nagar.

A corporation official said they had deployed pump sets to drain rainwater stagnation across Kolathur. “Since most of the places were low-lying and prone to flooding, the draining of floodwater is taking time,” the official added.