The Greater Chennai Corporation has procured an array of modern machinery to keep the waterways and waterbodies free of garbage and hyacinth to prevent waterlogging as well as controlling the mosquito menace.
A number of micro and macro canals crisscross the city, besides hundreds of lakes and ponds. The civic body has been finding it difficult to maintain the canals properly. Also with the construction of storm drains for hundreds of kilometres in various parts of the city, the flow of wastewater into these canals have been heavy. The civic officials said the dumping of plastic waste and letting of sewage into the storm drains blocked the flow of water leading to flooding during heavy rain. The poor maintenance of canals and waterbodies allowed breeding of mosquitoes.
Normally, the civic body takes up desilting only before the start of northeast monsoon to prevent flooding, that too…