Rising roads cause of flooding, say residents

Aggravated by the lethargic attitude and poor engineering of civic authorities in relaying the battered roads in greater Chennai, a section of youngsters and volunteers have threatened to file a petition in the Madras High Court next week against the municipal authorities and Chennai Corporation.

“We will file a petition in Madras high court once we complete 10,000 signatures by next week”, said P. Vignesh, a volunteer. “To a RTI reply, the municipal authorities had maintained that they would mill the roads, but to our dismay and to cut costs, contractors in connivance with engineers lay roads violating the state policy decision”, said Sunil Jayaraman, a local RTI activist.

R.Srinivasan, a retired BSNL employee and resident of Srinivasa Nagar, said, “We had to demolish the steps in front of our house and level the floor on a par with the road height. Water stagnation has become a regular issue ever since the road level was raised.” A protester, P.Balachandran said “Had we not protested, the road would have again gained 8 inches as usual”.

“Telephone cables and sewer manholes will be damaged if the gravel is scrapped deeper,” justified a site supervisor on road relaying contract. The project contractor, Thiruvengadam said, “Minimal material was supplied to the locality as the foundation here is good. But post protest, the municipal engineer consented to provide more material to build the road as per the residents wish”.

When the councilor of ward 35, R. Xavier, was contacted, he said, “An amount of Rs 1 crore was granted for this ward to renovate the roads. We are discussing the issue with the municipality officials to find a solution”. Efforts to contact senior officials of Pallavaram municipality proved futile.