Chennai: The rain-floods that ravaged Chennai end of 2015 were caused by the failure of the Chennai Metropolitan Development Authority (CMDA) in “liberally allowing” the large-scale construction through conversion of agriculture land and water bodies, the Comptroller and Auditor General (CAG) has said.
“CMDA liberally allowed constructions through conversion of land use from agriculture, non-urban and open space & recreation zones to other zones, resulting in the steep increase in built-up areas and consequent reduction of soil recharge of rainwater. Such unauthorised construction shrank the water bodies and had led to massive inundation during December 2015 floods”, said the CAG report for 2015-16.
The CAG report on ‘Performance Audit of Flood Management and Response in Chennai and its Suburban Areas for the year ended March 2016’ was tabled on the concluding day of the Assembly session on Monday.
The report said the CMDA allowed large-scale constructions along waterways, which choked the waterways and altered the land uses in the metropolitan area. Also, the State lacked a law on Flood Plain Zone to protect natural waterways, and water bodies had lesser storage capacity due to tardy implementation of restoration projects, said the report while recalling that the Dec-2015 floods had claimed 289 lives, inundated 23.25 lakh houses, disrupted power and telecommunication services, caused extensive damage to public and private property and crippled Chennai and suburbs for several days.
On encroachments, CAG said that despite the enactment of Tamil Nadu Protection of Tanks and Eviction of Encroachments Act, 2007 to protect tanks from encroachment, the percentage encroachments kept increasing year after year. Tardy implementation of a project for restoration and protection of water bodies also resulted in the floods, the report added.
CAG pointed out that the Tamil Nadu State Disaster Management Authority did not meet even once since its constitution in November 2013.
Pulling the Greater Chennai Corporation up, the report said that the civic body completed Storm Water Drains (SWD) only for 1,894 km of total road length of 7,303 km in the city, which is only 26 percent. n P4
“The corporation has to provide rainwater harvesting structures in SWDs at 30meter intervals. But corporation did not construct Storm Water Drains as required. Corporation has constructed only 9,113 rainwater harvesting structures against the actual requirement of 63,133,” the report pointed out.
“Greater Chennai Corporation in 2016-17 took up works to construct 292 km of SWD by earmarking Rs 463 crore. The expenditure increased from by 159 per cent,” it said.
The CAG also said that the Water Resource Department (WRD) had released water from Chembarambakkam tank indiscriminately into Adyar River to save encroached lands from submerging. “Tank in-charge of Chembarambakkam and WRD warrants an enquiry,” the CAG report said.
Meanwhile, the CAG report also recommended the government to enact a law on Flood Plain Zoning the minimize the impact of construction on water bodies. “CMDA should not allow development along water bodies without ensuring ameliorating measures taken by developers to prevent the impact of such developments. The government should put in place an operational institutional framework for disaster management with financial autonomy as contemplated by the government of India,” the report added.
