Tamil Nadu battle-ready for monsoon: Minister

Conveying this to the press in Madurai on Thursday, Revenue Minister, RB Udayakumar said that the state generally gets 48 per cent of its total rainfall from north east monsoon. 

However, in 2015, there was severe inundation and flooding in several parts of the state during the north east monsoon. This year, as a precautionary measure, Chief Minister Edappadi K Palaniswami has chalked out elaborate plans to tackle the situation.

In order to prevent water logging in areas coming under the Greater Chennai Corporation limits, 1,137 km of rainwater canals (mazhai neer vadigal) have been desilted at a cost of Rs 10.6 crore. Also, under the Integrated Rainwater Canal Scheme 294 km of new canals have been laid. All of them have been linked with the main channels. Besides this, work was being carried out to lay another 376 km of rainwater canals, the Minister added. 

Of the total 33,212 water bodies, desilting work in 22,538 structures has been completed and 5.06 crore cubic metre of alluvial soil has been cleared from them. It has been given to nearly six lakh farmers to be used in their lands. As a result of these activities, the storage capacity in the water bodies has been increased to 1.6 tmc, he informed. 

The minister further said that based on the 2015 flood, 4,399 vulnerable spots have been identified and among them 578 have been marked as ‘most vulnerable’. In all these 578 areas, machines like super suckers will be kept ready. 

Also 4,399 first respondent teams have been formed and each team would look after one vulnerable area. Overall 23,325 members, including locals, would be part of the team. All the members have been provided adequate training in disaster management. 

As such the state machinery is fully geared up to tackle any emergency and all departments would be involved in disaster mitigation measures, said Udayakumar.