Flood mitigation plan for Chennai submitted to Centre

Participants at the meeting, which was also attended by Revenue and Disaster Management Minister RB Udhayakumar, deliberated the restoration and rehabilitation of encroachments from watercourses and the development model that the state has planned for the same. 

“To provide decent housing to poor people living in poramboke land like watercourses and to restore these lands, the state has decided to acquire private lands through Revenue Department in the respective villages and the displaced would be rehabilitated by way of providing free house site pattas. Such affected families would be covered under the regular housing programmes of the Rural Development Department as well. The target to issue free house site pattas to poor has been fixed at 3 lakh for the present year,” a senior official said. 

Sources added over Rs 750 crore had been earmarked for State Disaster Response Fund (SDRF) for the year 2018-2019. The state’s handling of search and rescue operations during Cyclone Ockhi was also discussed. “The state managed to rescue 3,506 fishermen and 288 fishing crafts. It also declared 177 fishermen as untraceable and has disbursed Rs 20 lakh to each affected family. As much as Rs 124.11 crore has been released towards relief and rehabilitation towards the damages caused by the Cyclone besides Rs 51.05 crore released for restoring damaged infrastructure and providing relief to the affected families in the aftermath of incessant rains during November 2017,” the official said. 

“The government has been continuously strengthening the infrastructure of this department by constructing new buildings for taluk, divisional and Collectors’ offices. Under this initiative, the state would construct new buildings for three taluk offices and revenue divisional offices in the present year,” he added. 

The official pointed out that the state had also drawn up flood management plan for North and South Chennai, at an estimate of Rs 2,055.67 crore and Rs 1,243.15 crore and the same had been submitted to the Union government. 

In a separate meeting, Palaniswami reviewed the performance of Hindu Religious and Charitable Endowments Department in the presence of Minister Sevvoor S Ramachandran, who is holding that portfolio.