Chennai civic body wins two awards under Smart Cities Mission after 2 years

CHENNAI: After scoring a blank for two years, Greater Chennai Corporation bagged two awards at the Smart Cities Mission’s sixth anniversary award contest celebrated on Friday.
The first is for the lake rejuvenation project under the urban environment category and the second for innovation for the Covid-19 response. This was as part of ISAC-2020 – Indian smart cities award contest. Another positive outcome is that Chennai has risen from 42 to 14 in weekly rankings.
Sampath Kumar Subramaniam, state mission coordinator, government of India, said the state won about six awards including the state award for third best smart city in the country. “TN’s performance, particularly Chennai’s, has improved rapidly in the past two years. That shows in the awards and the ranking,” he said.
A senior corporation official said the win was big, especially for a city that has been affected by floods and droughts with drinking water being a major issue. “There was a lot of talk about encroachment of water bodies and other sanitation problems. To achieve restoration of 210 water bodies in a few years is a huge deal. We have not only caught up but gone beyond. We started late, only in 2016,” he said. By August, the restoration of the Villivakkam tank would be completed and the Mambalam canal project finished in about a year, he added.
An engineer from the storm water drain department said that at an estimated Rs 48.08 crore, the ponds were being widened, deepened, bunds formed and arrangements made for providing inlets and outlets. In some places, walkways were laid, and tree plantation and landscaping done. This ensured a water storage capacity of 643 crore litres and provided at least 1 TMC (thousand million cubic feet) to Chennai. Thanks to the recharge project, the groundwater level was 4.63 metres more than the previous year, he said. In the Ambattur lake area, the groundwater table was 1.05 metres more than last year; at Valasaravakkam it was 0.56 metres more; and at Madhavaram, it was 1.40 metres more than in 2020.
Under the Covid response category, the city won for setting up 19 tele-counselling centres and launching corona monitoring app, vidmed and home quarantine and isolation management system to not curb the spread of the virus.
The Smart Cities Mission has got an extension until 2023 for completion of its projects. So far, the city has spent about Rs 599 crore and has completed 37 projects. About eight projects, worth Rs 352 crore, are in progress. Tender for the Rs 9 crore Mambalam canal project is underway. Raj Cherubal, CEO of Smart Cities Limited, said they were sure that most projects would be extended by another year and several such projects would be taken up across the city.