Madipakkam North East Residents’ Welfare Association (MNERWA) has placed three requests with Zone 14 (Perungudi) of Greater Chennai Corporation. One, desilting existing stormwater drains (SWDs) made sluggish by dumping of garbage, before the onset of the North-East Monsoon.
Request number two can’t be brought to fruition before the monsoon, but nevertheless residents can’t keep from highlighting it. They report that many areas in Madipakkam lack stormwater drains, a factor adversely impacting the process of rainwater being carried from Madipakkam North East to the Pallikaranai Marsh through Kaiveli.
“Only Ram Nagar and Kuberan Nagar have stormwater drains. The rest of the localities, which include Madipakkam Enfield Avenue, Anna Nagar, Karpagambal Nagar, Lakshmi Nagar, Thanthai Periyar Nagar, Ramamurthy Nagar, Vishal Nagar, Krishna Nagar and Arul Murugan Nagar don’t,” says M. Anbalagan, president, MNERWA.
The third request has to do with the home stretch, about taking the SWDs to all the homes, and thereby making the SWD network complete. Now. the network is patchy, lacking interconnectedness.
“In Rajaji Nagar and Sadasiva Nagar, only some streets have SWDs, which means there is still waterlogging in these neighbourhoods,” says Anbalagan.