Incomplete Smart City work led to T Nagar flooding: Stalin

Following the incessant downpour in Chennai, Stalin, for the fourth day, carried out field inspection in T Nagar and Nandanam, starting from Vijayaraghava Road where he looked into the cleaning works in a canal located nearby and then inspected areas where water remained stagnated.

He then visited GN Chetty road where he inspected the flood-affected Sathyamoorthy school, Viswanathapuram and Rangarajapuram. The CM then went to Nandanam YMCA ground and inspected the area where the Mambalam canal joins the Adyar river.

Interacting with the media on the reasons behind the severe waterlogging in several pockets of the city, especially in T Nagar, unlike previous years, Stalin said that the incomplete works under the Smart City scheme led to flooding. “Large scale corruption was involved in the smart city scheme,” he said.

On Tuesday, he directly blamed former AIADMK minister SP Velumani for the situation in T Nagar and assured that a probe would be conducted to ascertain irregularities in the same. When asked whether the State has sought any monetary assistance from the Union government, Stalin replied that once the rain subsides, assistance would be sought. He added that so far, 1,548 people were put up in relief camps and 4.4 lakh food packets were distributed on Wednesday.

Stalin also visited the disaster management control room functioning in Ezhilagam and interacted with officials about the alert system. He was informed about the communication mechanism in the control room.