Rs 58 crore new channel to come up at Velachery

CHENNAI: Work on a new channel carrying surplus water from the Velachery lake to the South Buckingham canal near Tidel Park will begin in the first week of March. The Public Works Department's Rs 58-cr project, expected to come as a relief for the long-suffering residents of Velachery, Adambakkam, Okkiyam-Thoraipakkam and Taramani, will run via the Velachery-Taramani Link Road and is expected to be completed in a year.The four-km concrete drain will be a 6-m-wide and 3-m-high closed course.
It is among the four new channels planned as part of upgradation of major and minor waterways in the city by the PWD's Water Resources Organisation at an estimated Rs 633 crore, covering 12 water catchment areas. It is partially funded under the centre's Jawaharlal Nehru National Urban Renewal Mission.
"The Velachery project is significant since the reach is higher and many residential colonies will benefit. It will ease pressure on the Veerangal Odai, a flood water carrier in the southern suburbs that coveres many local bodies such as Alandur, Chennai Corporation, Madipakkam and Pallikarnai," said a senior PWD official.
Chennai Metrowater, Tamil Nadu Electricity Board, the State Highways, Chennai Corporation, BSNL and Southern Railway's MRTS are coordinating with the PWD, extending all logistical support. The PWD has spent Rs 13 crore towards shifting of water, sewer and power cables from the alignment. "Metrowater and TNEB manage to complete works for less than a km in the identified stretch and it has been decided to finish the entire project in a year," the source said.
Under the JNNURM, the PWD will also take up at Rs 24 crore construction of retaining walls in the Veerangal Odai where it branches off near Velachery High Road. The 1.8-km-long canal originates at the surplus weir of the Adambakkam tank and runs over the Odai poramboke in Adambakkam and patta lands of Puzhuthivakkam before emptying into the Pallikaranai swamp.
In 2006, a temporary channel connecting the Odai to the culvert near Velachery Main Road was formed. But, say locals, the odai gradually turned into a sewage carrier. "We hope the new channel does not become another Odai. The government should ensure it remains a flood water carrier," says A Veerappan, a social activist and resident of Vijaya Nagar in Velachery.