CAG: Rs 54 crore wasted on storm water drains due to poor plan

An additional Rs 54 crore has been spent due to shoddy planning of storm water drains (SWD), a key component of CMCDM, which was designed to improve amenities in the city and added areas.

Making the revelation, the CAG, in his performance audit of local bodies for 201617 fiscal, has concluded that the state government had executed SWD project under CMCDM even without topographical, meteorological and hydrological studies. An additional Rs 54.33 crore was spent to reconstruct 51 inadequate sized drains constructed without study. 

Report of the audit scrutiny, which was tabled in the House on Wednesday, has revealed that topographical, meteorological and hydrological data, essential for construction for storm water drains, were neither available in the detailed project report of CMCDM nor from the records furnished for the audit. Worse, the auditors have also disclosed how the government and corporation’s shoddy planning has defeated the purpose of the CMCDM. 

For instance, the storm water drains were not properly linked to natural water ways or water bodies, defeating the purpose of disposing runoff water and preventing flooding on roads. Even the government’s allocation has come under fire with the CAG disclosing that only Rs 2,500 crorew as sanctioned against the Rs 9,228 crore, which limited the scope of activities taken up under CMCDM. 

Even road works under CMCDM were executed without integrated SWDs in violation of project sanctioning committee instructions. Dismissing the government’s justification that drains were built for CMCDM to provide relief to the people before the survey was conducted for integrated storm water drain system (ISWDS), the auditors have summed up that construction of storm water drains on basin concept was not new to Chennai as SWDs in the core city had been executed under JNNURM in 2010-2013 itself.

Metro Rail project will be implemented in Coimbatore and a detailed project report will be prepared by the Chennai Metro Rail Limited for the purpose, Chief Minister K Palaniswami announced in the Assembly on Wednesday. Funding for the project will be obtained from the German agency KFW through the Centre, he said adding the proposal would address traffic congestion in the textile city. As regards the second phase of Chennai Metro Rail covering 107.55 km in three corridors at a cost of Rs 85,047 crore, TN government’s policy approval has been accorded and the project has been sent to Centre for its sanction and financial grant. One of the proposed corridors in the Chennai Metro Rail’s phase II Light House-Vadapalani will be extended up  to Poonamallee via Vadapalani and Porur, he said adding it would entail an additional cost of around Rs 3,850 crore. This was in view of increasing traffic on Arcot Road spread over Virugambakkam and Valasaravakkam, he said.