The Corporation's City Development Plan
Rs. 200 crore to improve storm water drains, Sanganur canalCoimbatore:The Coimbatore Corporation has allocated Rs. 200 crore in its budget for 2007-08 for improvements to the Sanganur Canal and also the existing storm water drains across the city. Rejuvenation of water bodies is a scheme under the Central Government's Jawaharlal Nehru Scheme, and this covers the canal also.
The Corporation is looking to provide a huge sum out of this allocation for desilting the canal and strengthening its bunds. The proposal includes removing the encroachments. Relocating slum dwellers in these encroachments is to be done under another scheme.
Ambitious plan
The Corporation has an ambitious plan in the case of Sanganur Canal. It does not want to stop with mere cleaning up. The civic body wants to turn the canal from the city's most unhygienic water body into an area of recreation. It also wants to make provisions for a food court and parks. As for sewage being let into the canal, the Corporation is confident that this will stop when more than half of the 72 wards will be provided underground sewers under another Rs. 200-crore scheme. The canal runs to 9.7 km in the city and the Corporation wants to carry out repairs to prevent any further breach in the bunds. It is one of the seven natural storm water drains (see table) that run to a total of 44.82 km. The Corporation has also built 585 km of storm water drains along roads. More are planned and these include those in the 23 flood-prone spots identified.
Development plan
The Corporation's City Development Plan says that even mere cleaning of the drains is enough to prevent flooding in these areas. Weak bunds have often led to breach and flooding of residential layouts. The problem was at its worst in last November. A number of layouts on either side of Tiruchi Road were flooded. A visit to these areas by the Corporation officials and elected representatives only pointed out to them the dire need for setting right the problems in the canal and also identify flood-prone areas in the layouts and provide them with good storm water drains. In less than a month since then, the district administration and the Corporation even demolished a few portions of some buildings that were encroaching a water way. The budget has allocated Rs. 1.56 crore for storm water drains in the flood-prone areas. Besides these, the civic body has announced in the budget that storm water drains will be provided at Rs.2 crore in over 500 unapproved layouts, most of which have been regularised under a scheme introduced by the State Government early this year.
Restoration of roads
The Corporation will spend Rs. 50 lakh on restoration of roads in the areas hit by floods during the last monsoon. Apart from this, Rs. 2 crore will be spent on providing roads in the newly regularised layouts.
