During the ’70s, Velachery was a small hamlet with paddy fields and a few small industries on the narrow Velachery-Tambaram road and a few stone quarries in Taramani area.
At that time, government proposed a 100 feet bypass road from Raptakas factory to Vijayanagar bus terminus and simultaneously another 100 feet Taramani road was planned to connect Vijayanagar bus terminus to OMR.
The government acquired land for these two roads during 1974 after paying compensation to land owners. However, the roads could be completed only at the end of the ’90s. In the meantime, Highways department decided to widen the Velachery-Tambaram road and made it as part of IRR from MRTS Velachery station to OMR via Taramani road, which was already developed.
Velachery tank lies on the northern side of the bypass road and the entire ayacut area of this tank had already been converted as housing colonies. Surplus water from this tank runs along the bypass road and Velachery-Tambaram road and crosses the IRR and the MRTS track through a culvert to enter the Pallikaranai marsh.
The delay in completion of the bypass road encouraged some people to occupy the land already acquired by government and put up some illegal constructions blocking the water course.
In 2002, the Highway department decided to acquire additional land for widening the road leaving the already acquired land to the enjoyment of the encroachers. Due to the encroachments, surplus water course became a small storm water drain and could not carry the entire water to the Pallikaranai marsh.
Immediately after the 2005 floods, an engineer came up with an idea to divert the water from Vijayanagar junction to Buckingham canal through an underground drain below the Velachery-Taramani road.
This project was started in 2005 at an estimated cost of `35 crore. After 10 years the estimate was revised to Rs 60 crore. At this rate, it is likely to take another five to 10 years to complete the work since the remaining work is in the toughest reach and the estimated cost is also likely to go up to Rs 85 crore.
The crux of the matter is, after all these efforts, they are going to land up 18 inches below the bed level of the Buckingham canal and thereby creating an avenue for another engineer to come up with another brilliant idea to lower the bed level of Buckingham canal from Lattice bridge to Adyar river at a cost of Rs 100 crore.
When all these things were happening, another engineer suggested construction of a head regulator across the old storm water drain just in front of the Junior Kuppanna restaurant to
head up the water and divert it to Velachery-Taramani-Buckingham canal underground drain.
Since the natural slope is towards Pallikaranai marsh, water will flow only towards that direction. Once you put up a head regulator with shutters which could not be opened for three days even before completing the underground drain to connect the Buckingham canal you end up in diverting the entire water from the Velachery tank into the residential area of Vijayanagar and other colonies. This is how it all happened this year.
Constructing a storm water drain 20 feet below the ground level at some stretches near Taramani burial ground would cost nearly Rs 80 crore as it stands now. The expected project cost for developing Buckingham canal bed level and for other improvements is Rs 100 crore. Public money of Rs 250 crore is being wasted.
Civil engineering is the department which creates all infrastructure where if you do work with devotion you will end up constructing dams, bridges, buildings, hospitals and educational institutions which will be remembered by the people.
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