Rs 2,500 crore spent, but more waterlogged spots than 2015

Data shows that water stagnation incidents were reported from 400 spots across the city till Tuesday night. Of the 400 locations, the civic body had cleared waterlogging from only 240 locations. In 2015, waterlogging was reported in only 306 locations.

A few of the worst-hit areas this year are T Nagar, Kodambakkam, and others. Motorists riled that the entire Usman Road stretch was flooded, making riding dangerous. Also, Azeez Nagar near Kodambakkam railway station is entirely under the water forcing the civic body to distribute food packets to the residents.

When asked, a Chennai Corporation senior official said the present report has been prepared considering every street as a separate location. "In terms of area, less than 25 areas are affected. For instance, 25 streets in the Choolai area are flooded, we mentioned this as 25 waterlogging locations rather than one area,"he said.

However, the disaster management plan released by the civic body has names of 306 waterlogged spots of 2015 and there are several streets and roads mentioned in the list.

Rs 2,500 crore spent since 2015

On the other hand, the Chennai Corporation has spent around Rs 2,500 crore since the 2015 floods to prevent flooding in the city.

During the period, a whopping Rs 1,385 crore has been spent to create and renew stormwater drains in Cooum and Adyar river basins (which is core city areas). Also, Rs 250 crore and Rs 20 crore has been spent on the Kosasthalaiyar basin and Kovalam basin respectively.

Apart from this, Rs 350 crore has been spent on the missing link stormwater drains project. For T Nagar alone, Rs 200 crore has been spent. Despite this, several streets and roads in the shopping hub are inundated. The civic body spent Rs 115 crore for desilting the drains during the period and Rs 80 crore has been spent for the Mambalam canal, in which widening works were carried out on Tuesday to let more rainwater.

Arappor Iyakkam, an anti-graft organisation pointed out that the reason for floods is corruption in constructing stormwater drains and urged the civic body to release the stormwater drain master plan for public view.