The Greater Chennai Corporation held a monsoon preparedness meeting to take stock of various works completed and any work pending at the Ripon Building on Tuesday.
The meeting, chaired by Commissioner G. Prakash, was attended by senior officials from Greater Chennai Police, State Highways, CMWSSB, Tangedco, Southern Railway and Revenue department.
According to a press release, the number of localities prone to water stagnation had been brought down to only three from 306 in 2015, 205 in 2017, 53 in 2018 and 19 in 2019.
As part of the efforts to prevent water stagnation, the civic body had taken up clearing of 30 canals, including those belonging to the Public Works Department, at a cost of ₹15 crore using modern machinery such as robotic excavators and mini amphibians.
The Corporation had set up a 24-hour control room with 75 staff members to receive complaints of water stagnation, traffic disruption due to tree fall and overflowing of sewage. Heavy duty pumps have been kept at standby to pump out water from 16 subways maintained by the civic body and mechanised tree-cutting machinery are kept ready to clear debris to ensure smooth movement of traffic.
The civic body would be cleaning the stormwater drain maintained by the State Highways department and Southern Railway.
At the meeting, the civic body made clear that permission would not be given for road cutting during the monsoon and advised utilities, including Tangedco, the CMWSSB and telecom companies to speed up in completing all the civic infrastructure development of any underground cable laying work.