‘More funds needed for lake work’

PWD sources said that already works like widening of river courses and cleaning up of drainage lines were underway on a massive scale. In many places the work is nearing completion stage and to finish the job completely more funds are needed. 

“After the December deluge, we have been continuously taking up works like desilting river courses and lake beds, besides cleaning up vulnerable points in the Adyar and the Cooum,” said M Bhakthavachalam, Superintending Engineer, Chennai region. He also added that they had sent another proposal seeking funds. 

Asked whether the water bodies have enough capacity to hold water, if there was a repeat of the December 2015 catastrophe in the city, the Superintending Engineer replied “since desilting works in many lakes and tanks are nearing completion, the situation won’t be that bad like it happened last year.” 

In fact, the PWD officials have prepared a blue print for lake improvement works some months ago, he added. 

Another senior engineer said “strengthening of bunds at Chembarambakkam lake and Poondi reservoir as part of efforts to prevent breaches. Nearly Rs 100 crore have so far been spent for such augmentation measures.” 

Meanwhile lake activists expressed skepticism over the works saying, “the PWD officials should go the extra mile and pay special attention to several suburbs that suffered the worst during the last year’s flood.”