Not just people and cattle, Chennai floods hit ‘cash cows’ too

CHENNAI: The flood that ravaged Chennai and its neighbourhood, which disrupted lives and livelihood of thousands of families and cost the government several hundred losses, has not spared some of the key, cash cow departments.

As the floodwaters receded, some of the sub-registrar and tahsildar offices in these areas are now battling a new problem: the staff there have to deal with fungi that have grown on thousands of high-value paper documents, including land records, marriage certificates, encumbrance certificates, legal heir details and community certificates, which were submerged in the water for more than three days.

For instance, the Periamet sub-registrar office had to be closed due to waterlogging, and was temporarily shifted to Triplicane. “The earlier plan to shift the office to a far distance place has now been dropped. Instead, the matter was taken up with the Greater Chennai Corporation seeking an adjacent alternate site for the hassle-free functioning of the sub-registrar office so as to help the public, a senior Commercial Taxes and Registration Department official told DT Next. The official added that the department was taking steps to protect all the documents and records from fungal infections.

“The rain crippled the operations of government offices. We have to gear up by Tuesday to ensure that the government records that the people lost during the floods are re-issued during the special camp,” said another government staff.

“The sub-registrar and tahsildar offices deal with official documents ranging from patta documents, marriage certificates, income certificates, community certificates and various registered documents. A few government offices in my constituency suffered inundation, going under four to five feet of water,” said Egmore Assembly Constituency MLA I Paranthaman.