Flood Relief: Central team visits Velachery

Chennai: The Central government appointed inter ministerial team to tour the flood-hit areas of Tamil Nadu assessed the damage in the city on Thursday.

The team led by joint secretary of the Union home ministry T.V.S.N. Prasad arrived on the Velachery flyover near the MRTS station around 6.35 pm. Chennai corporation commissioner Vikram Kapur, metro water managing director B. Chandra Mohan and collector E. Sundaravalli briefed the high-ranking officials about the damage suffered by Velachery.

Holding a geographical map of the locality in his hand, Kapur was seen explaining to the officials how areas like Ram Nagar were inundated after excess rain. Pointing to the Veerangal Odai, Kapur explained how the overflowing canal could not carry the excess water from the affected localities.

After spending around 10 minutes on the flyover, the team moved to survey the damage suffered by Velachery Main Road before proceeding to check out the gushing Adyar river near Saidapet.

Traffic flow was affected for some time on the Velachery flyover as the convoy of vehicles accompanying the team and those of corporation officials and police were parked there.

Subsequently, the team visited the Dhideer Nagar and Karunanidhi Nagar slums near the Maraimalai Adigalar bridge in Saidapet. The team interacted with close to 10 families in these slums and found out firsthand the kind of loss to property suffered.

Collector Sundaravalli played the role of interpreter as the children in the families showed the team their damaged books while families sought more relief money from the government.

District collectors prepare detailed roadmap
District collectors of Kancheepuram, Cuddalore and Tiruvallur have prepared a detailed road map for the central team to visit on Friday.

Unlike Chennai, where the Central teams had high speed ‘flood tourism’ trips, the collectorates have established a three step module under which the public and the victims of rain hit pockets will interact with the team narrating their monsoon woes and this will be followed by a road trip exposing the infrastructure loss due to battered roads, eroded causeways and breached lakes inundating crops.

The last step will be sharing of information to the central team on what has been done as an interim relief and cost involved for compensating and restoring the damages due to floods.

Cuddalore is ready for the central team and the collector has created a few road maps selecting the worst hit areas for the team to visit and interact, said senior official Gagandeep Singh Bedi, deputed by the state as Cuddalore district special officer for monsoon relief. “Places like Kurinchipadi, Bhuvanagiri and Panruti has witnessed heavy loss to human life and to property and such areas will be our first priority and the second focus is to ensure that farmers and those indulged in horticulture explain to the central team about the loses they incurred due to downpour,” Bedi said.

Tiruvallur collector Veeraraghava Rao has also prepared a blue print to be submitted to the Central team.