Chennai: Greater Chennai Corporation will desilt the 5.7km-long Mambalam Canal at a cost of ₹46.7 lakhs ahead of the northeast Monsoon.The civic body has floated tenders and the contractor will be finalised soon. The tender specs entail contractor to deepen the waterway by four feet and it will cover key spots including T Nagar, West Mambalam, Nandanam and Saidapet.GCC will remove silt and remove blockages in culverts at Venkatnaraya Road and CIT Nagar to make waterflow faster. The project also will widen the outfall point of the canal in Adyar River next to YMCA.The contractor has to deploy multiple robotic excavators starting from Valluvar Kottam. Around 300m will be cleared. The canal is also the most narrowest at this spot at just three metres, and works will simultaneously proceed at Bazullah Road and Venkatnarayana Road. Officials said metro too will aid in desilting the stretch where they are constructing the Panagal Park-Nandanam underground line.Officials said about nine encroachments still exist on the canal, particularly, a temple across the Theagaraya Road part of the canal. Notices will be issued, an official from the Teynampet zone said.Officials said the plan is to increase the carrying capacity to 500 cusecs from the existing 200 cusecs. “Earlier, the flow capacity was at 138 cusecs and they removed some encroachments in MGR Salai and GN Chetty Road which pushed to flow to 200. Still major works are yet to be done,” the official said.The smart city CAG report placed in the Tamil Nadu assembly two weeks ago flagged that ₹59.4 crore was spent to restore the Mambalam Canal and yet, works fully weren’t completed and the civic body too did not penalise the contractor.
