Chennai: Heavy rain recently left the city in a mess, with flooding, the canal overflowed and people in a newly formed environment were stranded.
Monday is no different.
While everyone blames urban local agencies, experts say it is the failure of the Chennai Metropolitan Development Authority (CMDA) which oversees the expansion of the city.
Toi shows how the authority plan can detect and improve deficiencies.
It cannot stop the reclassification of water bodies for development in the past four years, CMDA, which controls 1,189 square kilometers, has allowed nine applications to reclassify water bodies including water catchments in the Avadi and Red regions in the 79 hectare area which is an important source of water supply.
Apart from the rigid opposition of experts, such reclassification continues and has an impact on the rainy season when the rainwater recaptures the lake and flood.
Mudachur, OMR and Velachery are examples of reclassifications not controlling the local body that regulates encroachment when S Murugaiyyan moved to Thiruninravur almost 40 years ago, the area has five bodies of water.
“Only two survives.
The rest has turned into an environment,” he said.
Similar is a situation in areas where local bodies make it possible to build houses to ignore the nature of the soil.
And CMDA remains a mute audience.
Now, at least 750 water bodies within 40km radius are under the threat because of ‘development’.
CMDA has the authority to revoke the strength of local agencies to issue planning permits but rarely use it.
Local bodies do not follow the CMDA plan to plan the Master 600-volume of the two CMDA plans.
Details of the way to develop cities and suburbs, but the authority seems to have ignored its role to ensure the local body sticking to IT.
D Sivasamy, a former director of the additional city administration, said the CMDA must take control of the master plan and monitor the implementation.
“This is the Duty of the CMDA to determine where the body of the water is, where there will be water stagnation.
But it has reduced itself to the body that issued a permit Like Metrowater, TNHB and the highway so that each of them appreciated the master plan as his property.
Unable to examine violations due to an inadequate workforce of the fendment of cmda which is cracked in building violations only has three planners and has little space to effectively examine violations in the metropolitan area which includes four districts.
Denies allegations of agency failure in preventing flooding, a senior CMDA official said it would eliminate the shortcomings.
Failed to protect the lake, CMDA channels, which are intended to preserve the water body, have enabled the MRTs line along the Canal and TNHB Apartments in Lake Mogappair titled Eri scheme, ignoring the fact that the lake is very important for ecology.
This body has mapped the body of the water and swamp, but has not done anything to guide the local body to preserve it.
The latest example is the Port-Maduravoyal toll road which aligned extends along the Cooum River.
When contacted, the CMDA source said four proposals to turn the body of the water were rejected in the past 6 months.