Floods have become an annual event in Chennai since 2015 but the authorities are blissfully asleep

August to mid-January used to be the festival season in Tamil Nadu. The Tamil month of Aadi (equivalent to Shraavana) marks the beginning of this season with Amman (Ma Durga) temples coming alive with music, dance and gaiety after the six-month scorching summer, besides a lucrative period for the market with discounts raining. The culmination of Aadi leads to Navratri, Vijayadashami and Diwali. Global artists fly down to Chennai to showcase newly composed raagas, thanas and pallavis and the festive season concludes with Pongal and Thyagaraja Aaaradhanai, when people resume their mundane, routine rituals. But the pattern has changed since 2015, when November-January has become the ‘natural mishap season’ in Tamil Nadu in general and Chennai in particular. The Northeast Monsoon, which inundates the reservoirs during these months, has become a nightmare in Chennai and surrounding districts. Since 2015, incessant downpour torments the city for days on end and the entire infrastructure goes under. Main thoroughfares, subways and ring roads remain submerged under floodwaters and Chennai resembles a ghost town. However, it would be wrong to call it an unexpected development; it was a mishap that was waiting to happen as the Metro’s stormwater and sewage drains have been choked and clogged.

Understandably, floods and waterlogging have become annual events in Chennai’s calendar. Officials had warned the Tamil Nadu Government way back in 2009 that the State capital’s stormwater and sewage drains need immediate attention. A comprehensive study incorporating the Global Positioning System has already zeroed in on the locations where stormwater and sewage drains get mixed up. It is shocking to note that even after 12 years of the warning, no action has been taken by the authorities concerned to rectify this defect which would have cost hardly a few hundred crores but saved precious lives. Chief Minister MK Stalin is no stranger to these issues as he was the Minister for Local Development (2006 to 2011) and a former Mayor of the Chennai Municipal Corporation. He has hands-on experience and knowledge of the deficiencies haunting this coastal metropolis which has a flat terrain. At least by the next Northeast Monsoon, one fervently hopes, Chennai would have an efficient drainage facility. The Metro is blessed with a 700-km canal network and the Government needs to use it to full potential.