Click to play videoChennai: Civic woes in Chennai never seem to end. After the water crises of the past years, it’s now the sewerage system that has gone bust within a year of completion.
For the state, it's Rs 1,200 crore going down the drain.
Such is the mess that even Union Minister Dayanidhi Maran's posh Boat Club residence is weighed down by sewage problems, thanks to a faulty pipe-laying design by Chennai's Metrowater.
Dug up roads, sinking manholes and overflowing drains are a common sight and a solution seems
"We saw a manhole being lifted off the ground with a fountain of sewage. Our drains are overflowing and mixing with ground water. Now we can't even touch ground water for bathing or cleaning, let alone for drinking," says a resident of MGR Nagar.
Metrowater had taken up the Chennai City Riverwater Conservation Project (CCRCP) in 2000 to clean up the three rivers running through the city.
The aim was to lay new sewage pipelines to divert the city's waste away from the rivers. But the design which was supposed to last until 2021, has already begun to collapse, a year after it was completed. Pipes are frequently bursting and cement manholes sinking into the ground.
"They've used Pre-stressed Concrete or PSC pipes in the city whereas they should've used Ductile Iron or DI pipes. PSC pipes can't withstand pressure. So now we're plugging leaks all over the city," says Secretary, Federation of Metrowater Employees U Ramasamy.
Metrowater is now scrambling to set things right and repairs are being done across Chennai.
But in most cases, nothing can be done. So leaking pipes are allowed to overflow into storm water drains that eventually lead to the rivers.
Repairing these pipes means digging up the surrounding road causing traffic congestion. And once the work is done, the roads are irreparable.
Poor implementation, faulty design or bureaucratic corruption? Whatever the cause, it's Chennai's residents who're suffering.
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